


The Thorny Way They Walked

by WonderLad



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Antagonistic Sterek, Bisexual Derek, Bisexual Derek Hale, F/M, Gay Isaac Lahey, Gay Stiles, Gay Stiles Stillinski, Love Triangle, M/M, Male Slash, Original Character(s), Slash, Sterek Love Triangle, sterek
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-11
Updated: 2017-05-26
Packaged: 2018-09-23 13:16:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 130,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9659072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WonderLad/pseuds/WonderLad
Summary: When an outsider with dark powers returns to Beacon Hills to seek out the adopted family he abandoned years ago, he is met with the emergence of a powerful Alpha werewolf in wake of the discovery of his family's death at the hands of the Argent clan. Banding together with young wolf-man Scott McCall and meddling human Stiles Stillinski, whose burgeoning fascination and attraction with Derek Hale is proving troublesome for all parties involved, the outsider and his companions race against time to unmask the Beast Of Beacon Hills and stop a war erupting between their meager Pack of outcasts and the venerable Argent family who have been complicit in the genocide of their people for centuries. Will this shadowy voodooienne's inherited magicks alongside his own lupine strength and that of his old lover and adopted brother, Derek Hale himself, and the untested Scott McCall prove enough to stop the Argentum Purge from descending on the wolves of Beacon Hills and all their dwindling kind? Will Stiles Stillinski prove gritted enough in his own cunning wit and endless ingenuity to earn a place in the Pack? And will his jealousy at the old love between the outsider and Derek Hale break his spirit or push him to confront his fate?





	1. Le Fils Prodique

**Author's Note:**

> So I'm taking it upon myself to basically re-write the show from the ground up starting from the beginning of Season One. I've only watched up to the end of Season Two, admittedly. But as I catch up on the show (ASAP, promise) I will be advancing this fic to include characters that pop up in Season Three and beyond, though it's likely I won't be following the plot very closely at all beyond Season One. Because while I do enjoy Teen Wolf as a whole I think the content of the show itself had obvious weak points and I hate that I feel like the show is a guilty pleasure instead of simply a fandom I'm proud to be a part of. I HAVE done extensive research via the Teen Wolf Wiki so I hope I can do these characters justice having not seen what the show had to offer beyond Season Two. This IS a Sterek fic (mother of gods, I love them together so much, you don't even know) but they are definitely not going to be falling head over heels for each other anytime fast. It's meant to be a slow burn and a long haul which will hopefully result in a very deep and satisfying narrative for you, dear readers. So far I've only included one original character whose history I will be weaving into the story of the Hale family and I have no intention yet of adding more of my own characters, but you never know. It's gonna be a wild ride and I'm proud and privileged to share my words with you readers, who I may or may not henceforth refer to as The Free People. Walk tall with the Pack and thank you for beginning this journey with me.

THE Beacon Hills Preserve had once been a place of great natural beauty. It wasn’t to say that the arroyo willows didn’t continue their shivering song in the cool night breeze even if the lance tips of their softly haired leaves had begun to slowly wither and fall. It wasn’t to say that the towering Douglas firs of so many varieties didn’t carry on their skyward climb, their perfect triangle tips swaying rhythmically this way and that as if playing at being metronomes in time with the beating of the planet’s molten heart.

Tick-tock, tick-tock.

The various sycamores growing along the steep gorges of the Blue Heron river had already dropped their leaves, their skeletal frames clawing toward the dense canopy of evergreens. But it couldn’t be said that this yearly death was ever not a thing of beauty, for even the fingers of corpses could bear a stunning grace in their sharpness and articulation. The river gorges were held firm too by the stalwart roots of countless flourishing hemlock bushes, which had also dropped their gorgeous sprays of fragrant white blossoms months before. It was a shame to have missed that, to miss watching the acrobatic wheels of the blossoms twirling into the slow-running tributaries that fed out of the rushing Blue Heron. To watch them washing downstream like spots of light dancing in circles in rivulets of pitch. But it wasn’t to say that this place could ever be anything but beautiful. It wasn’t to say that the deep, rich scent of cyprus was dull or that the rare and ancient sequoias would ever be anything but breathtaking. Because they were. And they all maintained that swaying metronome’s pace in keeping with the strong East-blowing wind coming off the Pacific Ocean miles and miles to the West. Tick-tock, tick-tock. And there were still the spinning samaras that pirouetted earthward in veritable clouds from the boughs of the venerable ash trees, their wispy flight so soothing to behold.

But there was something lacking. There was something decidedly lacking here.

A lone male figure stood at the lip of the gorge that led down into the sodden clay bank of the Akeela Creek where it forked from the Blue Heron. He was faceless in the night, a dense wool hood pulled low over his features though there was certainly no other living person around from whom he might be intending to hide his face. His coat was buttoned to the stomach and open beneath, long and cinched low at the waist the way a woman’s might be. It revealed his torso to be long and lean and his hips angular and sharp through a pair of torn gunmetal denim jeans, though precious little else. His hands, which descended from the almost over-long arms of the dark coat, were shielded poorly in a pair of fingerless gloves that were constructed of some grainy tan leather. What could be seen of his skin was was creamy and dark where the fingers of the gloves ended in tatters as if they had been torn or bitten off. His fingernails were filthy and long. They were cracked and broken in places and dirt caked beneath them. At his hip he had lashed to his ship rope belt a hemp bag that rattled when he shifted his body weight.

Some four or five miles East from this edge of the nature preserve there was the little town of Beacon Hills itself, population roughly 27,000 by the last census in the year 2003. The figure by the creek remembered the place well; its quiet, well-meaning people and their quiet, well-meaning lives. The suburbs at the outer rim were a nightmarish maze of identical housing projects smashed together along a series of criss-crossing streets where the upper-middle class residents raised their children in bedroom community bliss. Green lawns, automated sprinkler systems, exhilarated and carefree dogs without leashes chasing giggling apple-cheeked toddlers about their spotless yards while their parents watched from the porches beneath designer awnings and drank homemade lemonade. Beacon Hills High School was the only public school in existence in this outer commuter belt.

The suburbs came into such proximity with the preserve at the foot of the San Ferrara mountain range that camping and hiking were a practiced way of life for most of its residents, though none ever ventured too far into the forest. At almost 200,000 acres in its entirety, the Beacon Hills Preserve wasn’t a true wilderness if there ever could be such a thing left in this country anymore, but the vastness of it commanded respect. An untrained woods-person without a compass on hand could get lost by straying twenty feet outside of their campground and wander these woods for weeks before being found. The Sheriff’s office was stationed squarely between the town proper and the preserve for almost this reason exactly.

Of course, the residential neighborhoods made up for little less than half of the population of the town. The central city was the pulsing core of Beacon Hills, where the Memorial Hospital and the Beacon Hills Police department could be found. The jurisdiction lines of law enforcement in Beacon Hills were split in a strange manner and always had been. The Sheriff and his department were responsible for Beacon County as a whole but his line of jurisdiction ended at the inner city where the BHPD and their vaunted boys in blue patrolled the streets. Here in the inner city were the nightclubs and fine restaurants, where people from the suburbs spent their Friday nights away from their carefully mortgaged existences and slummed it with the college kids from BHU who lived, ate, and drank on campus. Beacon Hills University was a district in and of itself in the inner city, a community of businesses existing side-by-side on one Main Street on the college campus which thrived almost solely on money poured in by college students who were always on the lookout for a new place to be bored, to be pierced and tattooed, to pretend to be grown-up and eat exotic foods and dance till the clubs closed at 2 AM. Here too in the inner city were the drug dens where anyone could walk in with fifty dollars in their pocket and spend the night making love to a needle and the mobile meth labs in enormous white vans that parked in different, inconspicuous spaces every night to cook the poison that they disseminated throughout the city in the hands of dealers as young as thirteen who’d learned the trade of peddling poison on street corners from their fathers and their fathers before that.

The figure on the precipice of the gorge into the Akeela Creek was an outsider to all of this, to the town and its people no matter their color or income or careers. He had lived in proximity to them once. He had been among them once, and often. He had learned their mannerisms and their eccentricities and been taught to blend with them by people who understood them far better than he ever did or ever would. He had attended high school and gone to the movie house in town and drank whiskey with the teenagers from school and drove a car much too fast on the winding rural roads at night with his classmates howling with laughter in the back seat. But he would always consider himself an outsider, and it didn’t matter where he went and who he went amongst. He was the outsider. The people who had taught him had been outsiders, too, and once before someone had taught them just as well how to pretend to be less than that.

It had all fascinated him all those years ago, the sensuality of merely existing in a place like this where there seemed to be no end to the reckless frivolity the young people could inflict. If he had stayed where he was born, if that had been what fate had ever intended for him, he might never have known the world outside was like this. He might never have walked into a Walmart at two o’clock in the morning to purchase condoms and light bulbs. He might never have driven a black Camaro, might never have tasted a deep-fried hamburger with onion rings and orange soda, might never have kissed a man. No, he most certainly would never have kissed a man. So maybe fate had been kind in its own cruel way.

But he had been gone from this place for some time, this particular outsider on the gorge. And he had known from the moment he set foot on the soil of this place that the reason for his return was intimate and grave.

It couldn’t be said that any part of the town of Beacon Hills proper had ever been a place of beauty, of any true beauty. Not like here on the preserve where forever had trilled songbirds along the raucous jeering of crows and the screams of any number of native owls who only made their presence known this way because the crows would swarm and tear an owl to shreds if such a lone predator were to surprise them in their own territory. Nature was hilarious in that way.

A great-horned owl with a wingspan as long as a man is tall, a mighty bird of prey with a hooked bill for tearing flesh and horrendous talons for catching and squeezing and killing - a bird that could strike a grown man down with a diving blow more powerful than a sledgehammer to the temple - would kowtow to a mob of carrion birds, would cry out in the night, “Here I am, and I mean you no harm, and no harm to your young, and no harm to your eggs, and no harm to the simple order of your lives.” This magnificent bird, the owl, once and now still depicted on Athena’s shoulder in busts and statues and paintings and any other sort of relic of the older world, would make her intention clear without hesitance or shame; “Here I am, please do me no harm.” Scion of a goddess of war. But then again so was Athena the patron of wisdom to those who once worshiped her in great marble temples, and so it seemed the owl would always be more an emblem of wisdom than one of war. And there was great wisdom in caution, certainly so in presence of a murder of crows.

That was the thing, however. There should have been the screech of owls. There always had been.

Beacon hills was surrounded on nearly all sides by forest and well East of Highway 1 between Los Angeles and San Diego. The wildlife was in abundance here and always had been. Lithe young panthers regularly sauntered down from the San Ferrara mountains to hunt the black-tailed and mule deer that seemed in endless supply in the preserve at the foot of the mountains. Indeed, panthers - or mountain lions or cougars as they were more commonly called in these days - were being sighted in Southern California with just as much frequency in recent years as the common black bear, the latter quickly being labeled a nuisance animal by local residents for its propensity towards overturning trash cans and prying open the tops of peoples’ cars like cans of sardines in search of food abandoned carelessly by human beings.

But it wasn’t that the predators weren’t skulking about in the shadows. If a panther does not want to be seen then you will never see it. If a bear does not want to be heard then you will never hear it. The outsider could have seen them, though. He could have heard them. But he didn’t. But that wasn’t the point. Not entirely.

Where were the night birds, the songbirds? Where were the whistling whip-poor-wills? Where were the mockingbirds? The owls had been similarly silent all night and this caused the outsider to remember the crows, who though they mostly slept at night would leave sentries of pairs of two or four to call back and forth to another, warning of danger to the flock, danger to the eggs. Where was the snuffling of the crawling things of the forest floor, the voles and the hares? Where was the chittering of the raccoons who made their homes here by the hundreds of thousands?

The outsider could smell them, all the creatures of the night. He himself was a denizen of this forest, he himself a creature of darkest nights though he wore a fragile shell of wool and denim and leather. He could smell them and he was sure they were there. Above him was a barn owl perched so high in the towering hemlock that he could hear the thin branch bearing the weight of her straining. All around were the cunning black crows, he smelled them easily - they had a sour perfume to them - and he sensed that not a one was slumbering at what should have been their sleepiest hour. He heard them shuffling uncomfortably in the boughs of the evergreens. He thought for a moment he could smell blind fear on them the way he would in a mammal. He had never smelled such fear in a bird. What had a bird to fear when all the sky was their sanctuary?

Then there were the grazing beasts. They were there, and they were great in number as always. At this time of night the deer would be at their most active, grazing gluttonously and gathering by this very creek to drink. At this time of night they would be all but fearless, for though the panther and the bear were making their triumphant comeback to the forests of the Western United States the deer would always outnumber them a thousand-fold. The outsider smelled four herds of them nearby, black-tailed, huddled, lowing, disturbed. They were digging at the earth with their knife-sharp hooves and pissing in fountains and shitting on the spot in absolute terror.

The burrowing creatures had done just that, burrowed. Gone so deep underground that the outsider could scarcely hear them much less smell them. Those that could take to the trees like the raccoons and clever, powerful martens clung to the highest boughs just like the birds. A vixen nestled within a hollow log nearby was failing to calm the mewling of her kit. While the rest of her litter of four was obediently silent under her frantic orders, this single kit seemed more sensitive than the others by far. The mother couldn’t console it, couldn’t quiet it. So she bit it through the skull and laid the corpse down next to its brothers and sisters, curling her tail around the lot and quivering to keep the living litter warm.

The outsider wondered mournfully if it was his own presence here that was causing this mortal reaction in the nature around him, this unparalleled fear that he had never witnessed in other creatures of the wild. But that couldn’t be. There had been others of his kind here for decades. They had lived in balance and harmony with their fellow tenants of this forest for as long as any of them could remember.

So of course he must go ask them, these others of his kind. He had come here, after all, to seek them out again after so long. How long, exactly? The places he had gone to, the things he had seen, the things he had done in all that time; they had occluded time for him, made years seem decades. Or were they decades that seemed years? No, that wasn’t right. The tension he felt from all his brothers and sisters of the forest was seeping into his bones, into his very soul. It was making him sick to his stomach, and this was not something easily done to a man or creature of his kind.

The outsider climbed down the gorge, taking footholds on sycamore roots that jutted conveniently from the sodden earth here and there. His grace in the long coat and a pair of thick knee-high hiking boots was uncanny, and when he landed on the mud of the creek bed he did so with the subtle finesse of a cat. Then not unlike a cat again, or perhaps a dog, he bent his head low with his fingers splayed into the clay and lapped at the clear running water with his tongue. It was fresh and clean, with very little in the way of chemical contamination or animal waste. God bless the Blue Heron river, there wasn’t a factory within a thousand miles that had legal right to dump into this river. He was glad that much hadn’t changed. He drank like this until his stomach settled.

Then he righted himself and sat on the creek bed with his legs crossed, his filthy boots streaking his torn jeans and the long hem of his coat fanned around him like the bloom of a night flower. The hemp satchel at his side rattled as it settled with him. He rested his hands on his knees, palms facing up. He could see that the leather of his old gloves was cracked almost beyond repair. Well, he was going to get hold of needle and thread somehow and repair them again anyway. He didn’t have money to trade for new things. And he certainly wasn’t going to go knock on his peoples’ door asking for a handout even if they were, in fact, his people. You don’t go away like that, walk away from people who love you like that, and come back with your hand out asking for a hand to help in return. His Mama had taught him that, a long, long time ago.

His Mama had taught him another thing or two, as well. He was going to put one of those things or two into use right now. He was going to figure out why there wasn’t a single fat brown frog chirping in this creek, why the deer weren’t grazing but jostling together back to back and trampling their own fawns in sheer terror. And then - if he wasn’t able to figure this thing out on his own by the power taught to him by the most powerful woman he had ever known in his relatively short life - then he was going to find his people and ask them. They would know. They probably already knew. And if they already knew and they hadn’t done something about it then it really was something to worry about.

The outsider lifted his head in this meditative position and his woolen hood fell back, revealing a mop of oily tendrils that curled back from his sharp hairline like the hissing locks of a gorgon. The skin of his face was dark and creamy as his fingers, though his eyes were closed before the hood ever fell. His lashes, long and naturally curled, fluttered slightly as he brought his hands up from their resting position on his knees and extended them outward on either side of him, palms out. Then, turning his palms as he did so, he pulled his arms up over his head until his palms met and bent his elbows so that his hands rested together right before his chest, which rose and fell slowly with deep, controlled breaths.

He began to speak softly, in a voice like honey and bourbon. He only thought of it that way because someone he once loved very much had described it that way to him. His accent was thick French-Creole, but he spoke in English.

“Ah’ve drunk of your water,” he said, lowering his face from its skyward position. “Ah’ve et of your meat, though long ago.”

He thought suddenly that he hadn’t eaten all day, that he was famished, that his body was too strained from the journey home to be doing this. That he could have easily tracked those deer out there, one of those bristling great stags, and sated himself before he continued. But he thought also and just as suddenly that he had subconsciously thought of this place as home. His journey home to Beacon Hills.

And there was something out here turning his home, this sacred wild place, inside out on itself like a corpse with the skin on the inside.

He would eat later. He bent once more to imbibe from the creek and resumed his ruminant posture.

“Ah’ve drunk of your water,” he said again, his voice more powerful this time. More determined. He let it rumble out of him. “Ah’ve et of your meat in mah youth, slept in the boughs of your sweet children. Never have Ah done harm on this your soil to those who never deserved harm. Never have Ah dabbled in darker arts than those the Earth herself would allow unless Ah did it to protect, unless Ah did it to eschew harm. Unless Ah did it to renounce harm to those who have also drunk of your water, who have also et of your meat, and who have also slept in the boughs of your sweet children. And never have any of mine done harm on this your soil to those who never deserved harm.

“Show me what plague darkens this place. Ah won’t be denied.”

The breeze quickened. The outsider felt it first like a gentle caress on his cheek, like his Mama kissing him goodnight. He smiled, grinning wide, but never forgot himself. He kept his posture firm but equally loose, shook himself a little from head to toe like a dog does when it shakes moisture from its coat. The wind lifted the hem of his long coat and carried scents and sounds to him from every corner of the forest. Things that even with his own enhanced senses he couldn't have gleaned alone.

No. No, that couldn’t be right. Yet he heard them, heard their voices. Smelled the sweat of the crevices of their bodies and the rot of their teeth from the meals they’d eaten that day.

There were men out here. Men with dogs. Stink of guns, gun powder, metallic reek of bullet shells. Men calling to each other, speaking to each other on crackling radios. Far off. Miles away. Closer to where the outsider wanted to be than where he was now. Closer to his people.

But he couldn’t hear his people. Couldn’t smell his people. He had expected to hear their voices, conversing, japing, laughing. But he couldn’t hear his people. And these men with their guns were not why the forest had fallen silent. The forest had never feared men and it had never feared guns.

The outsider began to panic.

He fought to maintain his composure as the wind began to die. He called out this time in a booming voice, beckoning but no longer begging. “You know me by name and so Ah will not repeat mah name!” He pulled his hands apart and clapped them together again, hard. “You know mah torn roots bore fruit here on this land, and you regardless know Ah reject any claim on this land. I reject your mockery, your condescension, your paltry whispers. Ah will not be denied. Tell me what Ah want to know! Tell me why men with guns walk on this soil where Ah have promised to never do harm to those who don’t deserve harm. Show me mah family, show me mah man, show me what plague darkens their door. Show me what plague darkens their door!”

And it worked, naturally. He was a witch, after all, and a son of a far more powerful witch at that. Of course it worked.

The whole world went white, then blackened entirely.

The outsider’s eyes snapped open and only the whites showed, luminous and streaked through with branching blue veins. The pupils had rolled up into his head in a shocking ecstasy. For a moment, just a scant moment, he fell backward. For just a scant moment a secret spark within him rose out of the shell of skin that had housed what his Mama used to call a soul. He’d never liked to call it that. But he wasn’t worried about semantics. It was barely a second. Just a scant moment. The spark hovered above his breast, thrumming like a hummingbird, then slammed back into his living flesh.

By the time it was over he’d had enough time to thrust his arms backward to catch himself before he dashed his head on the stones of the creek bed.

The visions had come in flashes, almost too quick to decipher. He’d seen one thing then it was obscured by a blinding light, replaced by something else. Over and over. It took almost no time at all.

Flash. Smoke. Men screaming. Women screaming. Children screaming.

Flash. A boy alone on his knees on this very soil, with a gun in his mouth. Faceless. The barrel was pointed straight up toward his brain. No mistakes this time. No more healing. I want to die. Let me be with them. I want to die.

Flash. A young woman laughed. Drank champagne. Smell of gun powder all over her. Stink of sulfur in her hair.

Flash. A hospital room, an IV in each arm. Breathing tube, throat forced open, wide awake, choking every second. Morphine not doing a goddamn thing. Drip, drip, drip.

Flash. Eyes in the dark. Glowing red.

Flash. Two young men, alone in the woods. Being watched by eyes in the dark. Circled. Stalked.

“Dude, this is seriously not how I wanted to spend the night before the first day of school. If I’m - “

“Yeah, yeah, if you’re too tired to make first line your entire high school experience is gonna be one big shit in a bucket and you’re never gonna get a girlfriend and you’re gonna rot on the sidelines with me while people like Jackson Whittemore get to stomp all over us because - shh!”

Flash.

“Don’t shoot! This delinquent belongs to me.”

Flash.

“So do you listen to all my phone calls? Scott, are you out there?”

“Dad, I swear, Scott’s at home. Said he wanted to get a good night’s sleep for first day back tomorrow. I came out here on my own.”

“Well, young man, I’m gonna walk you back to your car and you and I are gonna have a conversation about something called ‘invasion of privacy.’”

Flash.

A girl in the ground. In a hole in the ground. Her face covered in dirt, mouth open in a scream. Face utterly indiscernible, long auburn hair. Dried blood caked in her hair, covering her face. Teeth white in the scream, beetles eating her tongue.

Flash.

The outsider leapt to his feet, still groggy. Still reeling. What direction?

He saw those burning red eyes again in his mind’s eye and understood. The rest of it he could figure out later. The rest of it had been too much, too fast. He hadn’t been able to pick a single thread apart from the others because of the screaming, the woman laughing. That sickening, self-contented laughter. And what of the girl in the shallow grave? What of the boy with the gun in his mouth? That had been on this land, on this soil. He had asked to see his people, his family. What did this mean? No. Not now. That had been before, that had already passed. So that was for later.

But those two young men, the policeman - no, the Sheriff, he’d seen the badge - that was happening now. It was happening right this very second on the edge of the preserve. And now those two young men were one. The Sheriff had made his son go home. And it had been following them the entire time. And the forest knew. The forest knew, so she had grown silent. And the vixen in the hollow log had bitten her own kit to death for fear of those burning red eyes.

How far? How many miles? It was near the old house. Eight, maybe ten miles maximum. North. But the stalker was already there, right beside the boy. The young man was frantic, stumbling, terrified. He’d finally noticed, finally seen... Something. The stalker was circling him in the darkness, keeping out of the line of sight, moving from shadow to shadow. The outsider could see the silhouette of it dashing to and fro behind the foliage almost as if he were looking through the boy’s own eyes.

Then he realized that he was. He realized that the boy’s terror was his own, that he had inadvertently tapped into this young man’s mind without thinking and he wondered suddenly how. He had never been able to do this with a human being before, not to this degree. His Mama had been the true psychic, the truer witch. Anything the outsider had learned on his travels had never expanded his ability to pierce a human mind this deeply.

Could it have been that the boy was so broken down, so defenseless in his fear that he had granted the outsider access? By the gods, he could see into his soul, see into his heart, knew his name and the name of his only friend in the world and his mother’s face and his longing wonder at his absent father’s secrets and...

The outsider had never been able to do this to a human being before. He obsessed over it for a moment. Well, this wasn’t the damn time to think about it. He let go of the boy. The boy was already hearing the witch’s voice in his head, wondering if he was going insane, wondering if this was what it was like before you die. Thought he was hearing someone up there calling his name. Scott McCall. That was his name. The outsider let go of the boy immediately as if he had put his hand on a burning stove.

The stalker was going to strike at any second. And his intent wasn’t to kill. His mind was a spiked fortress, animal or no, but at the forefront of his thoughts - things he couldn’t have hoped to hide from any witch - were these things; bite, maim, wound, but do not kill.

The outsider couldn’t place how he knew the stalker was male but that was simply what his intuition had told him. And the outsider knew that even he couldn’t sprint ten miles straight in time to save the boy. His magicks would have made this monster tremble if he could only face it, but what could he do from this great distance to save this boy?

That bastard was going to bite this boy and rip him out of his own life. Scott McCall, age sixteen, son of Melissa McCall, best friend to Stiles Stillinski, lacrosse enthusiast, bad with girls, bad with math, no idea what he wanted to do with his life. Sweet as pie though. His whole mortal life ahead of him, and this son of a bitch with the slavering jaws and the eyes of fire was going to end it all and pull him into an everlasting night. As what? A Beta? A soldier?

For what war? What wars did their people have left to fight? Had he been away so long? Were there new wars to be fought?

No, thought the outsider. Not while I breathe.

He remembered the deer, huddled, anxious, afraid. There were so many deer in the forest that night he couldn’t reach out to touch all their primitive minds if he tried to. But he could with a few, maybe a dozen or more. Pray that would be enough. He could not find a panther with claws to match the stalker. He could not find a bear with jaws to turn the tide.

He pulled down his jacket sleeve and bit his wrist open with teeth that had suddenly grown sharper than any man’s should be, teeth that glinted long and white in the light of the half moon. It hurt like hell but he’d had worse. He squeezed his forearm and the blood bubbled up through the gash and splashed the clay of the creek bed.

“Mah life for his,” prayed the outsider in a frantic, breaking voice. He realized that tears had begun to pour from his eyes. Why? Never mind. It was old magick, blood magick. Maybe he was crying because he knew his Mama would at this, too. Because it was dark magick, and because he could have done it in other ways. But there was no time for that. The wind picked up fast, whipping around him.

In his tired witch’s mind he sought out the craven bovine minds of the deer, the stags especially. The mighty stags with their deadly pointed racks. “Mah life for his.” And of course the outsider wasn’t going to die this way, of course he wasn’t going to bleed out. The wound had already begun to close with unnatural speed, the tissue reaching from one end of the ragged scar to the other like a bloody tentacle. He put his wrist in his mouth again and tore the wound open afresh. The blood poured again, a fountain this time. “Mah life for his. Heed me. Do this for me, Brothers of The Hoof and Tine. Mah life for his, and Ah will never hunt venison in this forest again. Mah life for his. Heed me, Proud Ones. Guardians of The Forest.”

The wound closed again. Not enough. Not enough blood. The damnable old magicks, there could never be enough blood. He had seven stags, each of them with long graceful necks laced with thick sinew and muscle to throw their lethal racks. But it was early fall and the season of rut was yet to begin. They heard the witch’s voice, they heeded his call in their minds and surrounded the boy from all sides, this Scott McCall who had fallen to the ground on bloody hands. They had abandoned their herds and come bolting. It was good that the boy didn’t turn and run just yet. If he had turned and run at that moment it would have all been over. At the witch’s beckoning the stags lowered their antlers and held steady. But the season of rut wasn't upon them and they didn’t have enough of the festering testosterone left in them to drive off this... This thing, this monstrosity whose mind was like a steel vice.

The outsider tore into his wrist again, this time severing the radial and ulnar arteries together, using his elongated canines like shears. He squeezed and squeezed and the blood streamed down hot over the mud and into the water of the creek.

“Mah life for his,” he said again, crying out this time so that his voice drowned out even the howling wind. “Ah am Dempsey Bonaventure, begat of Evangeline, begat of Léonore, begat of Valérie, begat of Célestine! And Ah give mah unnatural life for his! Ah give mah unnatural life for his! Do you hear me, Knights Of The Wood? Do you want more names? For Ah have more names to give! Ah have the names of witches over ten generations past. Ah have the blood here of witches over ten generations past. Does that mean nothing to you, Sons of Cernunnos? Mah life for his!”

How much blood had he lost? He would come back from it, he knew that he would, but how much had he lost so far? Surely a creature like himself couldn’t be bled to death so quickly. But he felt his strength had ebbed by half already and when he looked down at his feet he saw that he was standing in a puddle of blood perhaps two feet in circumference, already turning brackish and brown. Almost a perfect circle. He closed his eyes, forced himself to focus, to see through the stags’ eyes.

There was the monster, hulking, ape-like, its muzzle low and dripping. It didn’t fear the stags in the slightest. It circled them and they turned themselves to meet it, dipping their heads low, throwing their racks and ululating. It was the outsider’s own war cry, issuing from the throats of these creatures who had come nobly to his purpose. And there were more coming. The more blood the outsider poured, the more the Sons of Cernunnos began to pour into the clearing where the boy had fallen. And the boy himself could only lay there as the thunder of hooves echoed around him and caused the earth itself to shake.

Another eight stags completed the circle around the boy. Scott McCall was more astounded than afraid at this point. The outsider who had named himself as Dempsey Bonaventure felt each of fifteen teeming animal minds whirling within his own, trying so desperately to erase his own wants and desires and replace them with their own. They wanted to bolt so terribly that the outsider wanted himself to shift his shape and run along with them. Their fear was his fear, their imminent death his own to share. The strain of keeping a hold on so many minds at once was going to tear his own psyche in two if he kept this up for very much longer. His nose had started to bleed. Well, his frontal lobe would heal. Hopefully.

But there wasn’t much more time. He was going to lose control soon. They were going to scatter. He already felt the first one slipping, drawing away from the fangs that lunged forward to snap at it then slip back to circle again. The feeling of those jaws closing so near to the stag’s exposed throat, the sound of the teeth meeting like steel on steel. It was too much. No, he couldn’t hold onto that one any longer. The tether snapped. The stag tried to escape and its legs were torn out from beneath it.

“Run, Scott!”

The outsider screamed and clutched involuntarily at his temples even as he issued the voiceless message to the frantic young man. The pain of the psychic tether breaking had been... He’d never experienced it before. He’d only ever used this gift to heal nature’s creatures, never to have them do his bidding in this way. Everything went white again, and the world was pain upon pain upon pain.

The boy surely didn’t care where the voice came from this time. The circle of stags had broken and the outsider fell to his knees with the exertion of pulling the fourteen animals left together in a barricade formation. Dempsey Bonaventure could only project those two words before everything in his head began to tumble down around him, he could only tell the boy to run. He was still tethered to the second stag as the teeth went into its back, severing its spinal column with a single savage bite.

He screamed again. It echoed through the preserve like a death bell. He had never screamed so in his short life. Everything below his waist went limp and he fell to his side, agonized, sobbing, crying his Mama’s name. The animal’s vision was blurring and going white. It was scared. The pain was ebbing as the paralysis set in but the animal was so goddamn scared. An outpouring of empathy issued from the minuscule electrical impulses moving between his own mind and the stag’s. The outsider wanted to stay with it till it was time for it to go, to give it comfort and succor as he had so many creatures before when he’d laid hands upon them to heal. But he knew what his Mama would tell him to do in an instance of violent death like this, and if he didn’t do it then he was doomed. He pulled away from the animal before it died. He let the creature die alone after it had served his own purpose and he felt shame like he never had before in his life.

Thank God, though. Too close. Too close by inches. He could feel his legs again. Through the eyes of the stags remaining he could see the boy was running, heading for the freeway. Good, good on you, boy. You don’t have an icicle’s chance in Hell but you make the son of a bitch work for it.

The outsider wondered fitfully what would have happened if he had stayed tethered to the stag when it died. Brain death? Psychic paralysis? He might have gone into a coma and never awakened. Once his Mama had been healing the mind of a sick old man with dementia and the man had picked up a knife from her kitchen counter and slashed his own throat with it. His Mama had evacuated the dying man’s mind just in time, just before the lighter parts of him evacuated his flesh, but she hadn’t been right for weeks after. The outsider had taken care of her for almost a month while she drooled and pissed her petticoats and told him stories about the old man’s wife and their son who had died in the first World War. Then one day she’d simply woken up, pulled off her nightgown, tied her corset on over her dress and kissed him good morning before she told him to go milk the goat and went down herself to butcher a chicken for the pot. They’d never spoken of it again.

Well, the outsider hadn’t gone down like that, he hadn’t gone into that hole like his mother had. It wasn’t to say he was stronger than she was - far from it, there was no witch like Evangeline Bonaventure - but the mind of a buck is nothing to the mind of a man. So there had only been the pain, the empathy, and the fear. If he had held the connection there might have been more, but he hadn’t and that was all there was to it.

Now to make this bastard pay.

He sent the remaining dozen animals plus one forward in a final charge, a wall of spikes, just enough to make the stalker take two steps back. He couldn’t do much more than that. The blood loss had proven too much, the magicks too taxing. He had given far too much. If his Mama had ever taught him anything it was never to give too much when dealing in blood magick, for there could never be enough to give. But he felt the tines connect, felt the antlers break the damnable stalker’s hide. Oh, and how the monster roared at that, more in anger and humiliation than pain. Ha! So you can bleed, you bastard. Well, bleed some more. He urged the stags to push, to rally, to show courage. To share his own courage if they had none of their own to spare. He was bleeding in torrents from both nostrils but he begged them to give him all they could give.

It wasn’t enough.

Dempsey Bonaventure fainted. Right on the bed of the creek, right in the faerie’s circle of his own blood that he’d spattered in the clay and mud. The hempen satchel at his hip rattled and some of the contents snapped and splintered under his weight.

Perhaps it was too much to say he fainted, for he remained in a semi-conscious state, kept awake with unopened eyes by the psychic residue sticking to the roof of his brain left by his noble hoofed soldiers. As he went down he felt his connections with the Proud Knights of The Wood fraying one by one. Some continued their assault on instinct and were torn to shreds, and those he promised to remember for their valor. The rest scattered mercifully but most were caught in the stalker’s swift vengeance and butchered in seconds, and those he wept cringing tears for through the closed lids of his eyes.

So this was it for the outsider, this was it for the witch. Bled and defeated. And maybe when the evil thing was done with the boy it would come for him, too. He remembered his promise to never hunt venison in this forest again. He remembered he had reveled in the game of the hunt once. He thought, who will protect this place now? This beautiful place? He thought, who will protect my family now? How now will I ever know what became of them? What has this monster done to my family? What has this monster done to my man? What blood I would have spilled to know, mine or anyone else’s. Bastard creature with your eyes of fire, I’ll see you in Hell. I’ll be the one holding the whip of thorns. And if you’ve sent my family to some terrible end then I will hold a knife to Saint Peter’s throat till he lets me hold them in my arms again. Just you watch. No angel or devil will stop me. I am the son of Evangeline Bonaventure and no angel or devil will stop me.

But that boy made it, didn’t he? If it’s my time to come to you now, Mama, then I know at least that boy might have made it. I made some difference, I pray I made some difference. I drew that line in the sand and held a monster behind it by the power of the blood you gifted me, Mama. Oh, you’d be so proud. God, I hope you’re proud of me, Mama. God, I hope that boy made it. Scott McCall, age sixteen. Sweet as pie.

The outsider who had called himself Dempsey Bonaventure woke once as he was being carried through the forest by way of following the Akeela Creek North. He woke to a familiar scent of cloves and musk, but of course that was a dream. These powerful arms were a dream, the one curled beneath his legs and the other wrapped around his shoulder blades and supporting his head which he couldn’t seem to lift on his own. He thought he heard a deep voice say his name but passed out again soon after.

When he was laid down upon a mattress frame that reeked of burnt dust and ash he knew that too was a dream. So too was the kiss goodnight, because Prince Charming was dead. Prince Charming was a slayer of dragons, but it seemed the dragon had won. The dragon was still out there in the night, breathing fire out of his eyes. So he, the outsider - he, Dempsey Bonaventure, son of Evangeline - must have been being laid to rest inside a glass coffin like Snow White. He knew it must be glass because he could see the sky. And he knew Prince Charming was dead because true love’s kiss would have wakened him from this nightmare. And then sleep overtook him again and he found a quiet solace in dreams that only a witch can have.


	2. He Didn't Sleep A Wink

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After being savaged by a demon in the night, Scott McCall turns to his only friend in the world and Stiles Stillinski is forced into a world of monsters and black magick that he was never prepared to face in his short sixteen years. Enter Derek Hale. Enter the dragon and the wolf-man who smells of cloves and unspoken sorrow. Will Stiles break in the face of his own preconceptions about the world tumbling around him, or will he rise to the occasion and stand tall with his best friend - his brother - as the world around them shifts and bends to accommodate the existence of preternatural beings they once believed to be only the stuff of faerie tales and nightmares?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd like to apologize in advance for the text format changing after the first chapter but I'm only just now figuring out this site and how to post in Rich Text and I'm reluctant to go back and change the format of the first chapter out of sheer laziness (I know, technologically stunted in all ways, shapes and forms). But I finally got my stuff to post in true paragraph form and I guess I can't ask for more!

“MOM, three calls on my first day might actually be overdoing it.”  
     Scott McCall’s head was on fire. Or rather it throbbed right between his ears. Down the hall from his Humanities 1 classroom there was an administrator in her office begging her husband not to leave. She was sobbing with her head against her desk and the phone pressed against her ear. He could smell her sweat and tears condensing on the screen of the phone. Could hear her pleading with him to wait until the school day was over so that they could sit down and talk it out. It had come out of nowhere. He had kissed her goodnight last night and told her he loved her, why was he doing this? But he could hear the husband on the other line, too. Hurried, moving while he spoke in short staccato bursts. Impatient, packing.  
    In another classroom a floor beneath them there was a beginner’s Chem lab being carried out by Mr. Harris’s freshman class. It was a simple one involving butane lighters and water. Scott couldn’t remember the specifics of it even though he’d performed the same lab with Stiles the first day last year. But he could smell the butane from the lighters. It singed the hairs in his nostrils, made his eyes water. Somewhere here in this very room someone at the back of the class suppressed a small belch and he was nearly bowled over by the stench of a sardine and onion sandwich.  
    “Everything except a pen. Oh, my God, I didn’t actually forget a pen. OK. OK. I gotta go. Love you.”  
    The steam table in the lunchroom was being loaded with the day’s perfectly gruesome assortment of frozen fare. Scott could hear the crisp snapping of the cardboard boxes being torn open by the cafeteria workers and smell the industrial plastic within. He’d never imagined plastic as having a scent before, but it did. It was a foreign and uncomfortable smell, one that didn’t seem like it should belong anywhere at all. It was also everywhere, the quiet chemical stink of plastic - in the chairs, the desks, the bindings of his textbooks. And when it was ripped open with a rusted box cutter that made a zipping sound as it slashed the vacuum-sealed bag of processed food from one end to the other he was sick to his stomach at the smell of the interior. Frozen green beans first, poured into the steam tray to thaw just in time for lunch in two hours’ time. Scott’s aversion to vegetables had perhaps been born of his mother’s inability to so much as roast a carrot without turning it into paste but this was an altogether new level of disgusting, the damn frozen green beans. They were coated in something - preservatives maybe - and the raw vegetable smell of them was masked by at least two layers of chemical wash. He felt his stomach turn as the next bag was slashed open. Zip, zip. Frozen mac’n’cheese - not real pasta, not real cheese, same chemical odors. Plop, bang, right down into the steam tray in one big chunk. Macaroni iceberg. Why hadn’t he ever minded before?  
    Then there was that girl, that girl with the waving hair to her waist speaking on the phone to her mother on a bench outside. Her voice was reserved, maybe a little intimidated by the insistent woman on the other line. But it also pealed like a bell, above everything else. Above the grating scratch of chalk at the head of the class where Mr. Reeves was outlining the words “Franz Kafka” onto the blackboard. He thought of the enormous bells that sounded every hour at the Episcopal church in mid-town when he heard her voice, an impact and chime. It resonated, her voice.  
    Principal Jarvis had walked up to her outside in the same gray tweed suit he wore every day. The student body wasn’t sure if he owned one for every day of the week or if he simply dry-cleaned it every night.  
    “Sorry to keep you waiting. So, you’re saying San Francisco isn’t where you grew up?”  
    “No, but we lived there for more than a year which is unusual for my family.”  
    So she was new. Of course she was new, he’d never seen her here before. Military brat, maybe? Voice like bells. Coming closer. Oh, God, coming closer.  
    “Well, hopefully Beacon Hills will be your last stop for awhile.”  
    “I severely doubt it, but it’s nice to dream.” She laughed softly, pretending. She didn’t really think it was funny. But the bells, bells from on high. Just outside the door. Scott realized he was suddenly sweating just a bit. And he was wondering why he was suddenly so unconcerned with the vicious bite in his side that he’d told no one but Stiles about or the fact that it no longer hurt though for the first six hours after it had burned so much that he’d had to gag himself to keep from screaming in bed. He’d made it home just before his mother pulled in from her night shift. He’d had to pretend to be sleeping. He’d had to discard his sheets because the blood had soaked through all the way down to the mattress. He hadn’t slept at all.  
    He was unconcerned suddenly about the circle of stags that had gathered around him like guardian angels last night, or the eyes of that thing in the dark. That thing that had taken him by the ankles just before he could clear the retaining wall onto the freeway and dragged him screaming back into the inky night of the preserve to sink its fangs into his sternum, lifting him then slamming him down hard. Again, and again. Shaking him just enough to loosen the flesh around the wound and cause the blood to really spurt, to allow the teeth to really dig deep. He was unconcerned about just how he had escaped with his life, he was unconcerned that he was living at all except that he was lucky to be living to hear these bells pealing in his head. Drowning out the sobbing, the chemical stench, the rank human emissions, the smell of petrol from the parking lot and sweat and sickening cafeteria food. He was unconcerned that he had heard a voice in his head that called his name, told him to run.  
    “Dude, there haven’t been wolves in California in like, sixty years.” That had been Stiles not thirty minutes prior to this moment with his particular brand of useless information, rebutting Scott’s claim that he had been assaulted by a wolf the size of a small Buick. “Besides, wolves hunt in packs." He hadn’t told his best friend about the voices, or the deer, or how the thing had torn through the animals like paper in its foaming rage to get at him. Only him, never stopping to eat the corpses of the dead bucks. Only slashing them to ribbons to get to him before he could escape over the retaining wall where there was always some modicum of well-lit traffic even at that hour.  
    But just like that it had let him go. It had jammed those sabers of fangs into him and worried him like a rag doll, all the while staring down at him with those eyes of fire. Mocking him. That’s what it had seemed like, like it was mocking him. Mocking his very existence, poor little lost boy in the woods. Always overlooked at school, at lacrosse, overlooked by the girls, bullied and bashed on because his best friend had severe problems with keeping his mouth in check and he’d never once cowed from stepping up to defend Stiles from some meat head even if it meant that they both ended up getting their jaws caved in. It was like the thing had been saying everything to him in that fiery gaze that he’d ever been afraid to say to himself, things he knew to be true; you’re nothing, Scott McCall. You’re a nothing little man in a nothing little body, a little boy made of sticks and string. You’re a dancing marionette, not like those real boys sauntering around the locker room after practice, towel-less and fearless and built like mack trucks. And there you always are, cowering at your locker in the corner, covering up, shutting up, broken fatherless son of nothing.  
    And then it had let him go. Lifted him once more then dropped him. Hard. And as he laid there in the dirt and fallen leaves on his stomach watching his own blood pool beneath him he had felt his head forced down into the earth by a single paw large enough to cover the entire back of his head. And he knew then that it was going to be over soon. He’d felt the hot breath of it on the back of his neck, stinking. Smelled like the blood of the bucks, like his own blood, like old rotting meat. It breathed down onto him and chuffed and growled. Then it had lifted its head to the sky and howled, and he wasn’t sure if he pissed himself in that moment or not or if he already had. It was a siren, that howl, it echoed from somewhere deep and tore out over the preserve so that a cloud of birds exploded from every tree, screaming in the night. It hadn’t been anything like the howls of wolves that he’d heard in movies. In documentaries when wolves were recorded howling it was almost like a song. This thing, the sound it made had been guttural and hateful, filled with malice. Filled with cold triumph.  
    Then it was gone. Like a phantom, like a shadow at sundown. Just gone.  
    So maybe he was a little more concerned about it than he would let himself admit. And yes, it really didn’t hurt anymore at all and that was concerning. And yes, he could smell things from across the building and hear the buzzing of a dragonfly’s wings from the pond half a mile off the property and yes, he had lost his inhaler last night but even upon coming home and stumbling up to his room he’d only been gasping for the sake of agony. Usually at the onset of the school year with the impending autumnal weather it got just a little easier for him to breathe, but this was unprecedented. When he’d been biking to school this morning his lungs had filled magnificently with the cold morning air and he’d been thrilled and never even thought that he might need the damn inhaler.  
    Oh yeah, and then there had been the dead girl.  
    They’d been out looking for the dead girl, just for a laugh. Stiles had heard his father the Sheriff talking about it over the phone, a girl in the woods. Cut entirely in half at the waist. Bifurcated, that was the word the Sheriff had used. Bifurcated. Funny word. They never thought they’d find anything, Stiles and he. They’d just wanted to blow off a little steam before summer was really, officially over and they had to return to the bottom of the rude caste system of Beacon Hills High the next day. And then Stiles had to go all noble to keep Scott out of trouble with the Sheriff when they were caught because he knew any punishment his father might inflict on him was nothing compared to the wrath of Melissa McCall.  
    Then, what? It was hard to remember. He’d dropped the inhaler, stopped to look for it. Turned on the flashlight in his phone to look for it in the impossible gloom knowing he was probably never going to find it again. Damn things were so expensive, his mom was going to kill him.  
    Scott had never seen a dead body before. Both of his grandparents on his mother’s side were still living and he saw them at least twice a year on Easter and Christmas. He’d never met his grandparents on his father’s side nor had he seen his father in God knows how long now. He’d never been to a funeral, never seen a body drained and powdered and made up and dressed for the coffin. He hadn’t even wanted to go out that night. It had been Stiles’ idea, Stiles who’d goaded him into it. Spastic, morbid Stiles who was always way too curious for his own damn good. And by the time Scott found himself alone out there he’d just wanted to find his damn inhaler and go home. He knew where he was, he knew the old Hale house was only about a mile North and he could reach the freeway ramp and run the opposite direction back into town with ease just as soon as he found the stupid inhaler.  
    Then, bam. Dead girl. There she was, right there in the smart phone’s bright blue glow. Cut right in half at the torso. Bifurcated, that was the word. That funny word. How do you even do that to a human being? What the hell do you use? Her eyes had been wide open, bloodshot, fat white maggots wriggling in her nostrils. In the light from the phone he could see right through the maggots, see their stomachs working to pump and pulp the flesh they chewed loose. The girl’s mouth was wide open, bugs flitting in and out. Bugs crawling in and out of her eye sockets, flattening themselves to go right beneath the eyeballs. Crawling right over the open eyes. Flies buzzing in one giant swarm, a great black fog that rose and fell upon the stinking white flesh as if it were a single living entity rather than a surge of hundreds of thousands. Breasts flattened beneath her, arms splayed, fingers made claws as if she had tried to crawl out of the makeshift grave while her intestines wound out of the bottom half of her like a bowl of noodles. He’d leaned to the side to vomit. The smell had been unendurable.  
    And then? Eyes in the night, eyes of fire. Voices in his head, “Run, Scott!”  
    Not voices, just a single voice. A single voice that knew his name and spoke in a thick Southern accent. A circle of stags, powerful and tall. Guardian angels.  
    And now the wound didn’t hurt anymore. It had burned like fire for hours and he was so sure that he was going to die and he’d silently begun to pray for death just to make the pain stop. And then it was over, just like that. When he got home he’d packed the wound with gauze and put an antiseptic pad over it after pouring a bottle of iodine over it. And now he couldn’t feel a thing there at his side where the fangs had sunk.  
    So maybe he could have stood to be a little more concerned, and he hadn’t told his best friend about the body yet either and he probably should have since his father was the Sheriff... And yet...  
    And yet she was just outside the door, wearing lilac perfume. Not much of it, just a little behind each ear and a tiny bit brushed through that lustrous dark hair. The door opened. Principal Jarvis led her in and she stood a little behind him with her hands clasped tightly together.  
    “Class, this is our new student, Allison Argent. Please do your best to make her feel welcome.”  
    Allison. Allison with the downcast hazel eyes. Allison with the nervous hands that tugged at the hem of her shirt. Allison who was tall and long and curved with skin so white and soft it looked newborn.  
    She was wearing a suede jacket and a thin gauzy scarf over a jersey t-shirt. Scott took her in from head to toe, smelled her more richly than ever in such close proximity as she somberly trudged through the front of the class to sit directly behind him in the only vacant seat left in the class. Lilac in her hair, overpowering though she had used so little. Slight hint of nervous sweat, nothing unappealing about it. There was, in fact, nothing unappealing about her to be considered. Allison, Allison, Allison. He repeated her name in his head and breathed deep through his miraculously uninhibited nasal passages. To remember her, to keep her there. And then he had a thought, and he dug into his bag at his side for a fountain pen which he reached back and offered to her without saying a word.  
    She made a face. What manner of face, he wasn’t sure. Scott saw Stiles out of the corner of his vision rolling his eyes but studying his friend intently regardless. That was Stiles, the poster boy for ADHD. Stiles who liked to abuse his Adderall prescription just for fun some days. Stiles, who seemed so atypical and so out of place no matter where he was or who he was surrounded by but who also took in so much and retained so many things that no one else would ever think to notice. And Scott had the feeling suddenly that Stiles had been observing him quietly from his seat in a row behind him this entire time, that he had been watching Scott’s head turn this way and that to tune into the stunning new frequencies of sound and smell that he was experiencing.  
    Scott hadn’t told him about these things, but he would. Because he would have to, because he was going to ask about it whether Scott liked it or not.  
    Fine. He would deal with that later. The pretty girl was smiling at him now, thanking him for the pen. Looking at him like he might be a little bit strange, like she might have to be a bit wary of him. But smiling nonetheless. It was a gorgeous smile, one that turned her strong angled face with its perfect lofty cheekbones into an aspect of simplicity and unreasoning grace. Allison, Allison, Allison Argent with the sad eyes. Well, she hadn’t seemed so sad when she smiled. Scott turned back around in his seat and wondered if he might at some point coax another one out of her.  
    The period ended before he had noticed the full forty-five minutes had even passed. Had he even glanced at The Metamorphosis? It was a short novella, he could finish it overnight to deal with the assignment tomorrow. His mind was all over the place. His head was filled with lilacs.  
    Then the bell rang and it was like someone was taking a jackhammer to his temples. He might have cried out a little, he wasn’t sure. His hands clapped to the sides of his head to cover his ears and even that did nothing to tune out the sound. Stiles had him by the shoulder and was leading him out into the hallway before he knew what was happening.  
  
***  
  
HER locker was across the hall from his. What kind of stupid, blind luck was that to discover at the end of such a purely shitty day? What noble deed had he done in a past life to deserve this? And through the throng of students exiting their final classes of the day, dozens upon dozens of chattering teenagers pressed in against each other like sheep being herded by a hound, she saw him immediately. Put a hand on her shoulder to adjust the strap of her bag. Smiled. And Scott thought to himself that if he lived a thousand lives he could sustain himself with no food or water, no air to breathe, if he had that smile to bolster him. His hand quivered a little, fumbling with the padlock on his locker. Should he smile back? Was he already smiling back? He was, wasn’t he? Like an insensate, like an idiot. He was almost sure he had drooled just a little bit.  
    “That jacket is absolutely to die for.”  
    Shit.  
    “Where’d you get it?”  
    Shit on shit.  
    Scott hung his head against his locker. Stiles was right beside him, saying something he couldn’t quite hear. Or maybe he couldn’t comprehend it because he was intently focusing his hearing on the new conversation passing between Allison Argent of the sweet lilac hair and downcast eyes and Lydia-damn-Martin.  
    What could be said of Lydia Martin? Lydia Martin, who runway-walked down the halls of Beacon Hills High in six-inch designer heels that would have tripped up grown women. Lydia Martin, the redheaded bombshell who’d developed like an early winter rose while nearly all the other girls in their grade had stayed gangly and morose. Lydia Martin who, when she threw back that head of scorching Irish fire turned heads and caused boys (and frankly, most of the girls) to either stop in their tracks or crash headlong into door frames and overturn their desks. Lydia Martin, Beacon Hills born and raised and obviously destined to someday be one of those sauntering women of power who roared up and down Highway 1 in a sleek red convertible to match her hair with suicide doors that she’d paid for herself. And all that roaring up and down the state would of course be to benefit whatever elite profession she ended up saddling up in after high school because it was no secret to anyone but her idiot boyfriend that Lydia-damn-Martin wasn’t just a Rembrandt with an eyebrow pencil and liquid liner. Lydia-damn-Martin wasn’t just a girl who had turned down three modeling contracts before her sophomore year of high school nor just the most well-adjusted, articulate, and well-liked girl at Beacon Hills despite her biting personality and her penchant for digging a little too deeply when it came to putting someone down when she felt they deserved it. Lydia Martin was also an honest-to-God genius. She was top of every class, and her classes with Scott and Stiles were few and far between because she took high-level AP courses that most seniors were struggling with. She’d blown through her freshman courses in less than half a year and this year she was taking collegiate-level calculus with a class of top students that numbered a total of eight including herself, the rest of them two years her senior.  
    Scott only knew most of this because his best friend had been in love with her since the third grade. It wasn’t that Scott himself didn’t find her attractive. A blind man would find her attractive. She oozed a syrupy femininity out of every pore of her body, out of her voice, and out of her wide, expressive eyes which she augmented regularly with copious amounts of coal-colored mascara to make her gaze like something out of a book of mythology. She was Helen of Troy, the face that launched a thousand ships, only Helen of Troy wasn’t currently competing for an advanced chemistry scholarship at the California Institute of Technology. It was simply that he had never thought of her that way, that he had never really thought of her that much at all when Stiles wasn’t going on and on about her. And maybe it was just that, that Stiles had been so head over heels for this girl for so long that Scott had felt compelled to put her out of his head as something unattainable even in his wettest fantasies. As if even thinking of her in that way would have been a silent betrayal to his only real friend in the world.  
    Scott had been questioning a thing or two lately about his best friend's devotion to this creature though, this siren. He'd been silently questioning a thing or two about Stiles since the middle of freshman year, trying to figure out a good way to get his friend to talk about it.  
    “My mom was a buyer for a boutique back in San Francisco,” answered Allison in regard to Lydia’s candid question about her wardrobe, and Scott thought he could hear the redhead’s heart skip a beat.  
    “I think that makes you my new best friend - hey!”  
    Then of course there was Jackson, effervescing out of the crowd and pulling his girlfriend close to kiss her in a way that made Allison’s eyes go wide before she turned away, embarrassed. Scott felt Stiles stiffen beside him.  
    This motherfucker here. This here was Jackson Whittemore. Jackson Whittemore of the perfectly coiffed hair and captain status for the Cyclones. Jackson the unyielding, Jackson the unstoppable, Jackson the over-compensating. Jackson the clout, Jackson of the lacrosse scholarship, Jackson who didn’t have to try. Jackson Whittemore who drove a Porsche and made sure everyone knew it. Jackson Whittemore who someday was going to be a burnout with a beer belly, dumped by his genius girlfriend and squeezed dry by the college sports complex so that he had to end his days getting high on paint fumes in a double-wide trailer wearing nothing but a dirty tank top and ugly striped boxers while his neighbors’ kids shot BBs at stray cats just outside. Or at least that’s how it was going to be if you heard Stiles tell it.  
    Well, if it happened then he deserved it and worse. Jackson Whittemore. Fuck Jackson Whittemore. The guy had been bullying them since they were in short pants. Even if Scott hadn’t suddenly discovered he could smell a pile of dog shit in a field two miles away he could have smelled Jackson from where he was standing now across the hall. The odor of male body spray that clung to every inch of the guy’s body was nauseating. It was worse than the chipped paint of the lockers or the chlorine horror show that wafted off the swimming pool in the gymnasium.  
    They were making small talk with the new girl, Jackson and Lydia together. Lydia would reach up to tousle his hair affectionately now and then and lean into him. Allison was uncomfortable with the interaction as a whole. She turned down their offer to attend a party at Jackson’s house that Friday. She made up a lie. Scott wasn’t sure how he knew it was a lie, but he could tell. Good. If she began to run with their crowd then she was as good as unattainable. That was why Scott had balked when Lydia approached her, why he had hung his head in defeat before the battle had even begun.  
    But you know what? Screw Jackson Whittemore and his seat at the top of the caste. He would have said screw Lydia Martin too but she’d never done him any more harm than to refute his best friend’s advances for the better part of a decade. Let them try to work their tentacles around this beautiful girl, let them try to mold her in their image. Scott had a feeling Allison Argent of the downcast eyes was a mold breaker.  
    She agreed amicably, however, to join the golden pair of Whittemore and Martin in watching the lacrosse practice that afternoon after classes.  
    Scott sighed deeply and Stiles snapped a finger in front of his face several times before he clicked back to reality.  
    “Hey, you. Eyes, now. What the fuck is wrong with you, man? You’ve been acting weird all day, don’t - “  
    “Think you haven’t noticed, yeah,” Scott said, finishing the statement for him.  
    He looked up at his friend and it was like he was seeing him for the first time today. He hadn’t realized just how tired the poor guy looked, how he must have been worrying for him since last night.  
    Stiles wasn’t a bad looking guy for all the shit he heaped on himself for the sake of his own anxiety and attention issues. His face wasn’t chiseled or angular like Scott’s - though Scott himself had noticed over the years a very detectable asymmetry in his own face where one side of his jaw was much higher than the other - but Stiles’ softer features were certainly something both boys and girls were finally beginning to notice, especially since he couldn’t hide an iota of his face with that sensible buzz cut that his dad insisted he keep. Not that Stiles himself would have ever noticed any attention lauded him by either sex. But his short upturned nose and wide thin mouth were very complimentary to his face as a whole. It was his personality that seemed to turn people away when they began to just barely pierce the surface of that spastic exterior. Or rather he pushed people away, and perhaps he didn’t know it himself. But he did. With crude humor and wild gestures and ramblings on ramblings, he pushed people away. Everyone but Scott, who’d been his best friend since they were in diapers together. Well, maybe he had tried, but Scott had stuck around anyway.  
    He felt terrible suddenly that he had been ignoring his friend all morning. He felt terrible that he’d been ignoring him just now just for the sake of listening in on the high school glitterati and their ongoing schemes to drink alcohol and rub up against one another. He felt terrible that he hadn’t told him the whole story yet.  
    But goddamn it, he wanted to drink alcohol and rub up against someone too. No. Stop. Focus. Friend. Best friend. Talking.  
    “Dude, have you told your mom yet? I mean, you’re gonna want her to take a look at that bite. When was the last time you had a rabies shot?”  
    Scott snorted. “I don’t know, man. I was eight, maybe nine? Don’t those last you a pretty long time? What if I told you I feel fine?”  
    Stiles made a gesture, some mixture of a quick shake of his head and a twirling of his wrist that resulted in an expression of pure exasperation. “I’m pretty sure that’s what Edgar Allan Poe said before he went batshit crazy and died screaming in a hospital bed, but I’m not a history expert.”  
    “Stiles, Edgar Allan Poe didn’t die of rabies.”  
    “That is widely debated and - no! You are not going to bait me away from the point of this conversation, Scott McCall. What the hell aren’t you telling me?”  
    Scott sighed again. Fine. Bit by bit, then. At his own pace. “Just about everything, actually. This here,” he lifted his shirt and showed Stiles the antiseptic pad over the gauze in the wound. It wasn’t even stained. “This is the least of it. And it doesn’t hurt anymore.”  
    Stiles’ eyes widened and he leaned in closer, then quickly reached to pull down Scott’s shirt himself before anyone else could take notice. Scott stole a look over at Allison’s locker and saw that the trio had already disappeared from view. “What do you mean it doesn’t hurt anymore? What does that even mean? Do you have tissue death? Nerve damage? Have you even looked at it since last night?” Scott shook his head reluctantly. “And you’re just going to go to lacrosse practice and try to make first line with a wound in your side after you got mauled by a fucking bear?”  
    “Stiles, I told you - “ Scott stopped and looked around. He’d raised his voice, gotten a little red in the face. People were staring. He lowered his tone, putting a hand to his forehead. “I told you, it wasn’t a fucking bear. Bears don’t howl, OK? I mean you have to know that much, they don’t do that. And it didn’t move like a bear. Bears do that thing where they sort of bumble around and waddle with their butts wiggling back and forth. This thing didn’t move like a bear. It was like... Like it was a living liquid. Like it was just pouring itself from one place to the next without any effort whatsoever.”  
    “And do wolves move like that?” Stiles retorted, his eyes vivid with emotion. This really was eating up at him. Scott had never seen him like this before. He shook his head and put his fingers to his temples, rubbing them rhythmically in circles. It was his method of soothing himself when his brain began to move too fast. He’d probably overdone it on the Adderall again. One day Scott was going to convince him that he didn’t need that crap to focus, that it actually made the problem worse. His dad hated it too but Stiles insisted he needed it. “OK, so let’s consider options. Not a bear. A bear would have eaten you, anyway. Well, a bear would have eaten part of you then buried the rest of you to finish eating later. I saw this documentary. A mountain lion could move like that. Cats are graceful and fast, obviously. But a mountain lion wouldn’t have bitten you in the side. A mountain lion would have leapt on you from behind and snapped your neck with its paws or bitten right through your skull. And it couldn’t have been the color you describe. Mountain lions aren’t black, they’re not like leopards or jaguars where they can have melanistic color variations like that.”  
    “‘Melanistic color variations?’” said Scott, smiling a little mockingly despite himself. “Were you sitting at the back of class Googling all this on your phone the entire time?”  
    Stiles nodded without a hint of humor. “When I wasn’t watching you bugging out at every little sound. Not to mention what happened when the bell went off. What’s going on with you, Scott?”  
    Scott looked his friend dead in the eyes. What to say first? What to tell him now and what to save for later? “I... Uh... I don’t really know. I honestly have no idea, man. I... I hear stuff.”  
    Stiles piqued, turning his head to the side. “Hear stuff? Like what, like voices? Is that why the nervous tick? Is that a rabies thing? I’m going to see if that’s a rabies thing.” Stiles whipped out his phone and Scott grabbed his hand to stop him.  
    “It was... Voices. A voice. And it wasn’t really speaking. It was like... Like it was in my head. In the woods, right before the attack. Well, no. During, and before. Like whispers. But more than that. I hear things now. Things I shouldn’t be hearing, and these things aren’t in my head. I could hear Allison talking to Lydia and Jackson just now from all the way over here. I could hear her talking to her mom on the phone before she even walked into the building. I could... I could hear Mrs. Ramsey begging her husband not to leave her during class from her office. I could... I could smell things. I can smell things now. I can smell everything. I can smell the egg salad sandwich you had for breakfast. I can smell the grass on the practice field from right here. And it’s not rabies, I swear to God I don’t have rabies.”  
    “How the hell do you know you don’t have rabies, man!? Oh, my God. I feel like I’m in the Twilight Zone here, you’re telling me you heard a voice in the woods and you were bitten by a great big black wolf and you can smell my breakfast and you can hear peoples’ conversations from - ” Stiles stopped, mid-sentence. Scott could sense the wheels turning in his head. If he had x-ray vision to go along with the hearing and the sense of smell he could have glared through his best friend’s skull and seen gears turning at whirlwind speed, giving off smoke and steam.  
    “Stiles...?”  
    “...we gotta get to practice. Well, we gotta get to the locker room. You gotta get to practice and I gotta get dressed so I can sit on the bench and watch you practice.”  
    “Stiles, what the hell is going on in that twisted little head of yours right now? I swear to God, I can’t take much more right now.”  
    “You can’t take much more?” Stiles actually laughed out loud at this. “Ooh, buddy, you haven’t even told me the whole story yet and you’re telling me you can’t take much more. That is really fucking cute.”  
    Scott battered his fist against his locker. It was harder than he’d intended, but not so hard that the metal sheet should have caved inward like a piece of Styrofoam. But that’s what it did. He held his fist in place there, astonished, mouth open. He hadn’t meant to... Hadn’t meant to put that much force behind the blow. Didn’t know he was capable of hitting that hard. He’d never hit anything that hard in his entire life, and he hadn’t even tried... And now Stiles was mirroring his expression; mouth open, eyes wide. Stiles was getting ready to say something, then looked around. There were still kids milling about. Some had taken notice and some had not.  
    Stiles was going to say something and then he shut his mouth again. He put an arm around Scott’s shoulder and led him away without saying another word.  
  
***  
  
WATCHING his best friend take precedence on the lacrosse field over himself had become something of a personal hobby for Stiles Stillinski. It had been a frustrating little canker at the back end of their close relationship for years, something Scott never seemed to possess any limit of guilt over. It was perhaps that persisting sense of guilt on Scott McCall’s part that kept Stiles from ever allowing any feelings of petty jealousy to come between them. He joked about it constantly, of course. If he didn’t do that then he really was going to explode one of these days, and that certain shade of puke green wasn’t a color he would have ever cared to see on himself.  
    Today was different, though. Today Stiles wasn’t thinking about how he wished he could be out there on the field instead of spreading his ass on the bench watching the bigger, stronger boys strut their stuff on the moss-green turf. Today he didn’t care one bit. Being on the bench meant he could be on his phone, and being on his phone meant he had at his fingertips a sprawling web of information concerning his best friend’s peculiar condition that he could access quickly and reliably with a series of lightning-quick jabs and swipes of his thumb.  
    Scott wasn’t up to attack just yet. All the candidates for first line attackmen were lined up a solid hundred yards from the goal, each of them lobbing the ball in turn to see who could get theirs past the goalie. Scott was sixth or seventh in line. Right behind Jackson Whittemore, actually, who’d played both attackman and defenseman for the Cyclones the past two years and brought the team the state championship both years in a row. Whoop-dee-damn-doo. Winning a championship doesn’t do you much good if you can’t spell it.  
    Stiles’ hostility toward Jackson Whittemore was a carefully reserved well in the pit of his stomach that he rarely drank from anymore. So too was his misplaced, unrequited love for the Irish Car Bomb that was Lydia Martin, a girl who had turned ignoring his unabashed attention into a spectator sport. He still found her beautiful, still found her desirable in every sense of the word. Certainly he couldn’t help but look her way every now and then as she cheered from the bleachers on the other side of the field next to the new girl from San Francisco who Scott had seemed to latch onto like a sick puppy. But Lydia Martin had been a lost cause from the moment she entered freshman year alongside Scott and Stiles and discovered in the year above theirs the hulking hunk of idiot that was Jackson Whittemore.  
    If that was her type then more power to her. People thought that Lydia dumbed herself down for Jackson, that she was foregoing some vital part of her vast intelligence and resources to appease his pathetic alpha male sensibilities. That wasn’t the case. Stiles could see how she played that boy like a fiddle, how much of a virtuoso she was at using every wile at her disposal to pluck everything she wanted out of Jackson while letting him believe he was in control. More power to her indeed. Stiles could never have pulled it off himself. Besides, he would have liked to think he had better taste in men.  
    But of course his taste in men wasn’t something he discussed with anyone, Scott included. Stiles had enough going on. He had the ADHD, the depression, the mood swings. He thought it would get easier with time but he missed his mom more every single day and he had walked in on his dad crying over a bottle of Jack Daniels more than once, and recently. It wasn’t something a kid liked to see, his father hunched over his desk weeping into his paperwork. Before Stiles had begun to practice his personal brand of dark, forced humor as a defense mechanism he’d developed a bit of a violent streak after Claudia died.  
    That was strange. He rarely thought of his mother by her first name. She’d always been just “mom.” But his dad said her name in his sleep sometimes, when Stiles would find him passed out over his work with an empty bottle overturned at the edge of the desk. Claudia. It was such a pretty name, like something out of an old romance novel or a movie. And the way she’d used to talk about how his dad had courted her, bringing her flowers he’d picked out at the preserve and playing music for her from beneath her window at night - definitely like something out of a movie.  
    How long had she been gone? Five years now. Five years. He was sixteen years old. But it might have been yesterday she was singing him to sleep. Some children begin to forget what their parents look like if they die when they’re young, but Stiles had just turned eleven when she passed. He would never forget his mother’s face.  
    He wondered what it would have been like if she could be here now, watching her son moping on the sidelines while his best friend tried out for first line. Of course she wouldn’t care that he wasn’t allowed to play. But she would have come to every game regardless. She’d never cared for sports but she’d cared for the things her son cared for because that was the kind of person she was. Melissa McCall, bless her heart, was one of the best mothers anyone could ask for and she had been there for Stiles through some of the worst of it after Claudia died. But she was nothing like Claudia. Stiles’ mother had been... Softer.  
    Melissa missed most of Scott’s games because of work and nobody ever blamed her for it, Scott included. Scott had spent most of freshman year on the bench with Stiles anyway. This year she’d promised to make an effort but it was going to be difficult for her. She was a trauma nurse who spent her nights stabilizing gunshot patients and forcing IVs into strung-out meth heads who’d partied just enough the night before to experience the joys of renal failure in its early stages. So she didn’t take bullshit with a grain of salt and she had ironclad priorities that included little more than her son and her work. Melissa McCall was a hell of a woman. Stiles had heard his father say that more than once and once he’d even thrown a violent fit over it because he thought that his father might be thinking of making a move on his best friend’s conveniently single mother just after his own mother’s death.  
    He remembered that night vividly, the way he’d taken the vase from the table in the foyer and hurled it through the bay windows at the front of the house. The frantic way he’d scrabbled through the broken glass to find the perfect gleaming shard with which to carve a fresh notch into his fragile little arm. Just another notch, just another moment of searing pain to help him forget. To help him forget for just a few seconds, because every waking moment he wanted only to scream for his mother. But if he was hurting some other way? If he could feel something like a shard of glass piercing his skin and trailing a hateful vein of agony down his arm? He could forget just as long as the pain persisted. It didn’t matter if it only lasted thirty seconds. Thirty seconds was a reprieve. Thirty seconds not spent crying for his mother was thirty seconds in Heaven.  
    But his father had picked him up, little Stiles kicking and screaming like a demon. Noah Stillinski hadn’t yelled, hadn’t threatened, hadn’t punished. He’d simply picked up his son around the middle and sat down with him in his lap on the sofa in the living room while the cold air poured in through the broken window. He’d let little Stiles hold onto the piece of broken glass that he’d gathered in his little fist, the young father sober as he’d ever been and prepared for whatever would come in the next few moments. Whether his son would do harm to himself or to him, Noah had been prepared for it. And then he’d done something that he’d never done for his son before. Noah began to sing.  
    It was quiet at first. He was self-conscious about it. Claudia had always joked and said he had a voice like a magpie. She was of Eastern European descent and that was the first bird with a gruff, raucous voice that she could think of at the time. But as his son began to relax in his powerful grip his voice rose both in volume and confidence, remembering through a haze of guilt and grief the words that his wife had sung his son to sleep with every night for eleven years.  
      
    “Tam v haiu, pry dunaiu, solovi shchebeche,  
    “Vin svoiu ptashynochku do hnizdechka klyche.  
    “Tam v haiu, pry dunaiu, tam muzyka hraie,  
    “Bas hude, skrypka plache, molodets' huliaie.  
    “Tam v haiu, pry dunaiu, khodzhu samotoiu,  
    “I plachu, I rydaiu myla, mylyi za toboiu.”  
      
    It was Ukrainian, and in Noah’s rough voice it was certainly nothing like the sweet lullaby that Claudia had once used to rock Stiles to sleep. But he had known the melody and the words enough at that point to sing it well enough. Claudia had once explained the meaning to both of them as they were putting Stiles down for the night. This was the story she told;  
    There was once a girl who lived in a forest by the Danube River, and in the night she heard the song of a nightingale calling his kith and kin to roost, and the low sweet strum of a bass, and the magical whittling of a lone fiddle. And in that sweet music she longed for the one she loved and thought only of the places where he was setting his feet. And in that sweet music she wished she could fly like a nightingale to the one she loved.  
    That was it. That was all there was to the story, to the song. Claudia had called it “In A Glade” and Stiles used to picture in his mind a girl wandering in a midnight clearing wearing a silken white dress in her soft bare feet, singing along with a mottled nightingale while she thought sadly that the man she loved couldn’t be walking there beside her with his hand strung through her own. He’d had to ask his mother what a “glade” was and she had explained that it was nothing more than any open space in a forest where the moonlight could shine down to bless the earth and all those who felt love thereupon. His mother had never been anything less than a poet, and when she sang there didn’t seem any need for nightingales.  
    Stiles had fallen asleep on his father’s lap that night, something he hadn’t done since he was an infant. His mother hadn’t been gone but a year at that point. The deadly shard of glass had slipped out of his hand and landed harmlessly on the carpeted floor where Noah collected it after laying his son down in his bed on the first floor, not daring yet to carry Stiles upstairs to the boy’s own bedroom and risk waking him on the journey up the creaky steps. Then the dutiful Sheriff had swept every single piece of jagged glass off the living room floor and gone outside to collect every sparkling shard out of the flower bed beneath the bay windows by moonlight alone - out of the bed of plantain lilies and Blackeyed Susans and bright pink hibiscus and Russian sage that Claudia had planted and kept with her own two hands for the last decade of their life together in that house at the foot of the San Ferrara mountains. Then he’d gone to sleep on the sofa in the den.  
    He’d collected the pieces of the vase which had belonged to Claudia’s mother and pieced it back together bit by bit with super glue and painted over the cracks with his son’s help the next day. He’d made a project of it, let Stiles press his little hands into the paint and draw his fingers over the mended cracks till there was little left of the original but the shape. But there was something new altogether about it now, something the father and son had created together to remember this woman who had been the architect and anchor of their lives.  
    Stiles thought often about telling his father how he felt about boys, about men. He didn’t think his dad would take it badly, really. But there just never seemed to be a good time to have that conversation, never a pertinent opportunity to bring it up. It wasn’t that he didn’t like girls too, but as he grew older it seemed his interest in what most considered the fairer sex had begun to wane with each passing year. Until it seemed as if he had been lying to himself about it this entire time. But what the hell did he know? He was sixteen years old. He’d never kissed a girl much less a boy. And yes, just like any boy who had feelings like this he’d gone through that phase where he’d been in love with his best friend for a time. But that hadn’t lasted long. Scott was endearing in his way and adorable for all the ways in which he’d always stood up for Stiles and defended him from a world that always seemed to want to batter him down and shut him up. And yes, Stiles did love him. He loved him dearly. He wasn’t sure if there was a person alive outside of his father that he loved more. But it was a love he’d realized he would have felt for a younger brother, for meager athletic prowess notwithstanding Scott McCall had never been the sharpest tool in the shed. If it had been Scott who had always protected Stiles from playground tyrants then it was Stiles in turn who had always kept Scott out of trouble with a quick silver tongue when the two of them were caught in any number of heedless juvenile escapades.  
    Only this time it hadn’t exactly worked out quite so well. That had been the worm in his apple today. Scott would never have ended up on the preserve alone last night if Stiles had just been honest with his father. If he had just said, “Alright, jig’s up buddy. You can come out now,” after he’d shoved his friend beneath the bower of a willow to protect him from the flashlight glares of the Sheriff’s search party. What was the worst that would have happened? Melissa McCall would have grounded her son and the two would have spent the first two weeks of their semester playing Resident Evil 5 and Diablo II in Scott’s room after school instead of trying out for lacrosse. Scott would have been miserable. Scott would have been pining for that sad average high school experience he seemed to crave like a kid who could never find the keys to his parents’ liquor cabinet. Well, miserable was preferable to... Whatever the hell was happening to him now. Miserable was preferable to hearing voices in the woods, to vicious burning bite wounds and secrets upon secrets upon secrets. Stiles hadn’t even begun to scratch the surface of those secrets yet. The implications of them were beginning to erode his sense of self. He felt a quiet panic attack beginning to form at the core of his stomach as he punched the word “lycanthropy” into the search bar of his phone.  
    Stiles hadn’t had a panic attack in years. He fought it down, swallowed hard. Didn’t look up from his phone, just focused on the screen in front of him. He drowned out the cheers and cries from across the field and put himself in a quiet place. He hummed his mother’s lullaby, imagined himself walking barefoot in a glade.  
    It was ridiculous. Stiles knew he wasn’t going to find anything of pertinence on the Internet, at least not here on the surface net where every single digit was being monitored and fed through a system that was designed to spit out cursory information for lazy novelists and college students. But how the hell does a person go about accessing the dark net from a cellular phone on a shared family plan? Stiles wasn’t sure he could have even done this on his PC setup at home, and his system wasn’t exactly a slouch. Besides, he already knew what a lycanthrope was, and that was not what had attacked his friend last night. A lycanthrope doesn’t assume the form of an animal, doesn’t turn into a giant black wolf and stalk high school students through Southern Californian nature preserves. A lycanthrope is someone who merely thinks they do this, someone who imagines through whatever haze or trauma that they become a wolf by night and terrorize and rape and cannibalize and eat the bodies of the dead.  
    Ah, but wait. There was a line there. A line between clinical lycanthropy and mythological lycanthropy. Delightful. God bless Wikipedia. Now he was getting somewhere. Well, no. That was stretching the truth a bit. He only knew as much right now after twenty minutes of reading as he had gleaned simply from observing his friend and listening to what parts of his story he was willing to divulge. What had Scott reported? Increased auditory capacities, olfactory sensibilities that would have put a bloodhound to shame. And Stiles himself had witnessed the amplified strength when Scott nearly put his fist through his locker. God, how were they going to explain that one to the administration? And the bite wound. What if the wound didn’t hurt anymore because it had already healed under that antiseptic patch? Just like in the movies? Well, it wasn’t just in the movies. It seemed that was a focal point in the lore dating back to the thirteenth century and beyond; rapid regeneration. Explained sometimes in fanciful, poetic, and archaic ways, and in others simply being stated that the creature had been shot through and through time and time again and still rose to savage its attacker.  
    Mythological lycanthropy. An ability once attributed to warlocks and worshipers of Satan. Men and women who could actually change shape, assume the form of a lupine creature to do evil, to hunt and savage and consume.  
    Mother of God, how were they going to explain this to anyone? They couldn’t, could they? What the hell would the people of Beacon Hills do with that information? Stiles could picture it now.  
    Melissa McCall would keep it quiet at first. But she would insist on blood tests, tissue samples. She was a nurse, she wouldn’t believe any of this until she could see it with her own two eyes. She would steal into the hospital at night with her samples and study them under microscopes and make notes and report her findings to the first doctor she thought she could trust. To help her son. To fix it, to cure her son. But of course there was no one they could really trust with this information. If it was true, if any of it was really true...  
    Stiles pictured his best friend in a white room. White walls, white bed, white sheets torn to ribbons by razor teeth. And a wall of industrial space-age glass surrounding him on all sides, tinted so that he couldn’t see out but anyone standing on the outside could see right in.  And a team of biologists and chemists and technicians dozens strong would be gathered around the room twenty-four hours a day. They would gas the room to knock him out and collect blood every other hour and strap him to tables and cut him open to watch his body put itself back together again. They would slip live pigs into the room through a trap door like feeding time on the Island of Doctor Moreau and watch Scott suffer through the hunger and the hatred and self-loathing until finally he relented and tore the animal to shreds, eating it live and raw while outside the glass the scientists filmed the entire gruesome episode and took notes after notes after notes. They would watch him piss and shit and jerk off and collect the leavings to try to isolate what special enzyme or protein it was in the juices of his body that allowed him to...  
    Allowed him to what? Well, what was it that he did? Stiles hadn’t seen it for himself yet. Scott hadn’t, either.  
    Stiles was jumping the gun. He’d taken one more Adderall this morning than he should have and he could feel it gnawing at the backs of his eyes. What kind of assumptions were these to be making before he had ever seen his best friend sprout fangs and hair and eyebrows that met in the middle? It was moronic, he was being paranoid. The Adderall was making him paranoid, making him quake a little even. He would talk to his doctor about lowering the dosage because he couldn’t trust himself with the amount he was taking now. That was all. And Scott McCall was certainly not a Werewolf By Night like in the Marvel comic books Stiles used to read beneath the beam of a flashlight beneath his sheets at night.  
    But the werewolf in those books had been a hero, hadn’t he? He had saved damsels in the night from other creatures of the dark and fought the forces of evil with his heightened senses and amazing canine powers. Stiles would have to dig through the attic at home and find those comic magazines and read through them again. Not for information, mind you. He simply wanted to read them again. He remembered the doomed, tragic protagonist’s name. Jack Russell. Always got a laugh out of that. It had been his dad who’d bought him those comic books after his mother died to take his mind off things. Stiles used to love superheroes. The ones who wore capes and flew around patrolling their cities like policemen were always a little too boring for his taste, a little too vanilla. Maybe a little too close to home to be interesting. But the cursed ones, the ones like Alec Holland the Swamp Thing and Jack Russell the Werewolf By Night had always been compelling, even romantic. Yes, romantic was probably the perfect word to describe them. Even the gruesome Swamp Thing with his monstrous frame wrapped in vines and rot had found love with a swooning beauty in his everlasting battle to save the dwindling green places of the planet.  
    A ball rocketed past Stiles’ head and he snapped out of his quiet reverie. Looking up, he saw the culprit in all his padded glory. He thought about flipping Jackson the finger but settled instead on blowing him a kiss, which actually managed to piss him off a bit to Stiles’ eternal amusement. Coach Finstock, naturally, allowed Whittemore a second pitch with light admonition and his ball sailed past the goalie and into the net with the practiced ferocity of an athlete born. Stiles felt a little bile rise in his throat.  
    But the moment had come. Scott was up next. Time to put the theory to the test. Scott was no slouch with a stick but he’d never been much of an attackman. Always a midfielder, never a bride. It was a little presumptuous to assume that if he made the goal then he had developed some sort of preternatural abilities. He’d been practicing all summer, actually. But Stiles was curious nonetheless. There was a heated intensity to Scott’s face that Stiles could see even from across the field, right through his mask. And he understood suddenly that Jackson had said something to him, probably whispered some droning cruelty in his ear as he strolled past to get into his head. To put him off his game. Stiles felt a wave of quiet hatred for Whittemore wash over him anew. Fuck him. Go get ‘em, Scott.  
    Allison was watching intently too, her hands wrenched together in her lap. Stiles could tell from the moment he saw this girl look his best friend in the eye that something unsaid had passed between them in that classroom, like a bolt of lightning that had arced from the center of her forehead and lanced into Scott McCall’s brain just between those big googly eyes he’d been making at her all day. Well, good for him. He deserved a little action, even if the girl was getting cozy with Lydia Martin. That would certainly make things a little more complicated for all parties involved. But Stiles also envisioned in his mind a reckoning of sorts that could eventually happen between himself, Scott, and Jackson if somehow and someday Scott and this Allison Argent became something of a thing. Maybe the three boys could finally bury the hatchet and act like civil human beings toward each other, for it truly seemed there wasn’t another soul at Beacon Hills who had ever felt the lash of Jackson Whittemore’s sadism like they had. For all intents and purposes the guy treated most everyone else with respect and comity, yet Scott and Stiles had forever been his whipping boys.  
    Alright, so maybe this viable little kissy-face union between Scott and Allison Argent could at least get Stiles close enough to bury the hatchet in Jackson’s back if nothing else. Now, wouldn’t that be nice? A nice big sharp hatchet, too, the kind the woodsman used in Little Red Riding Hood to hack open the belly of the Big Bad Wolf. Wait, the Big Bad Wolf was from The Three Little Pigs, wasn’t he? Well fuck, weren’t they all big and bad?  
    Well, not Scott. If any of this was real, if any aspect of this wasn’t just a giant steaming pile of horseshit - just some obsession brought on by too much Adderall and not enough sleep - then Stiles was sure beyond any reason that his best friend wasn’t going to huff and puff and blow the house down around their ears. Scott wasn’t going to hurt him. He wasn’t going to hurt anyone. He was Scott, for God’s sake. He worked at a freaking animal clinic and spent his evenings cooing at puppies and giving antibiotics to sick Guinea pigs. And there had to be a way to fix it, to reverse it, or else there would be a hell of a lot more of these things roaming around all over the world. This one that had bitten Scott was just an anomaly, probably just a straggler from some ancient race that had long disappeared off the face of the planet Earth because a human population numbering in the billions and modern science just did not allow for things like this to exist unnoticed.  
    They would figure it out. They would figure it out together, like they always had.  
    Scott made the goal. It was so fast Stiles barely processed the moment between the ball cannoning from the net of his stick and connecting with the goal. The goalie hadn’t even had time to react properly, to turn his own stick to meet the pitch. It was like Scott had fired the ball from the barrel of a gun.  
    An uproarious cheer rose from the bleachers on the other end of the field, louder even than the voices that had erupted for Jackson. Allison Argent had risen to her feet and was leaping, clapping, whooping with the rest of them, and even Lydia Martin was smiling grudgingly and bringing her hands together slowly from where she sat beside her new friend. Stiles had never seen his best friend smile so widely in his life.  
    But it wasn’t over yet. Coach Finstock tossed Scott a second ball, himself agape at the speed and strength with which the boy had launched into the goal. Scott, understanding, caught the ball deftly in the net of his stick and hurled it just as savagely as he had the first. Wham, bam, thank you, ma’am. Goal in one yet again. The crowd went wild. Bobby Finstock looked like he had just won a multi-million dollar lottery. Stiles searched for Jackson in the masses and was thrilled to see the sourness on his face, the way his perfect hunter’s bow lips were so pursed with enmity that they all but disappeared beneath that strong Apollonian nose.  
    “Hey, Jackson!” Stiles called from the bench, feeling a surge of fresh confidence in his friend’s triumph. Whittemore’s head snapped toward him, eyes the color of a lush tropical jungle seething with rage. Stiles pushed his middle fingers into the corners of his mouth and pulled them upward in a leering Cheshire grin. “Smile!”  
    For a moment it looked like Jackson was going to charge across the field at him with the stick still in his hand. For a moment Stiles felt like he might even be able to take him, as elated as he was at Scott’s unlikely victory and as high as he was on the amphetamine coursing through his system. Stiles had never seen such unabashed fury in another human being’s eyes before. But the scarier thing was that in that moment it didn’t scare him in the slightest. Bring it on, Big Boy. Bring it on.  
    But it was just for a moment. In the next moment the entire team excluding Jackson had gathered around Scott and were clapping him on the back and slapping his ass and exercising all those bizarre male rituals that Stiles had never taken part of and never understood. If he ever slapped a guy on the ass it was going to mean something altogether different. Not that he ever had. And now look at poor, miserable, broody little Jackson Whittemore. Stomping across the field toward the locker room with his tail between his legs while his girlfriend fluttered along behind him calling his name to no avail. Stiles could say this for Lydia Martin; her heels were sticking in the grassy turf and she was frustrated and desperate but her every movement still dribbled a practiced grace so easy and comfortable for her that she might as well have been floating over the field. There was a girl who could walk through a mudslide in a white dress and shoes and come out the other side spotless, never breaking her stride.  
    But there was someone else on the field now, or just beyond it. A tall figure in dark clothes that were indistinguishable from this far off. Right on the edge of the school parking lot. Had he been there before? Stiles must just not have noticed. It seemed like the guy had been standing there watching the entire time. Stiles squinted his eyes to focus his vision, which blurred a little sometimes when he did too much Adderall. He thought he could make out a sharp dark hairline, a thick leather jacket and a grim, unshaven face. Skin underneath was sickly pale. Guy had a thick figure, broad shoulders. Or maybe it was just the jacket. Probably not, though. He had thick legs too, clad in dark jeans that were just tight enough to show it.  
    Definitely wasn’t a student. The boys here at Beacon Hills High certainly had an inclination for developing fast but this guy was a grown man for sure. Not old enough by far to be a parent but not young enough that his presence by the field didn’t seem peculiar. And his posture - so rigid and unforgiving, his arms crossed across what could have been a wide barrel chest and his feet set shoulder-length apart in a pair of huge dark work boots. Stiles got the impression of a coiled viper, tensed and threatening. Fangs dripping. But he also felt like he’d seen this guy before. He was so familiar in some far off way, like someone he’d seen in a dream long, long ago. He couldn’t make out the exact details of his face from this far away. Not with his eyes failing him. But he could faintly see the sharp incline of a pair of shockingly well defined cheekbones beneath a pair of thick black eyebrows. Practically a mongoloid brow, furrowed and wide. Were those blue eyes? Green? Stiles couldn’t tell. He was practically seeing double from this distance. Damn stupid drugs. Scott hated the drugs. So did his dad. Scott was right about the damn stupid drugs, and so was his dad. But Stiles had been on the Adderall for so long now he wasn’t sure he could quit if he tried. Certainly not if he wanted to stay functional. It was already so much of a struggle to keep up in school and it seemed some days like the Adderall was the only thing keeping his head above water.  
    Hell, he was even having trouble concentrating right now on what was right in front of him. This guy, this hulking six-foot-something behemoth of a man standing on the edge of the parking lot - it had seemed at first like he was scanning the field with those indistinguishable eyes that could have been green or blue. Searching for something or someone in particular. But as Stiles looked closer, really squinted till he was looking through mere slits of his own eyes, he noticed that the angle of the dark man’s stare was directed at a single figure traipsing across the field directly toward Stiles. A figure beside whom was walking a tall thin girl in a gray balaclava out of which spilled a waterfall of raven tresses. A boy with a sharp, asymmetrical jaw and tousled brown hair, sweating with adrenaline and smiling from ear to ear as he made quiet, awkward small talk with the girl who’d stolen his heart and sewn it into the lining of her jacket in less than eight hours’ time.  
    The dark man was looking directly at Scott. It could have been that he was following Allison at first glance, but when she waved to Stiles and bid Scott farewell with a little squeeze of his hand which caused him to shiver all up and down, the man’s gaze remained squarely on the scraggy young man as he flopped down on the bench next to his friend. The field slowly began to empty.  
    “Dude,” Scott said, practically breathless. And Stiles could see his breathlessness wasn’t from the effort of the practice or the elation of scoring two perfect goals or putting Jackson in his place. He was looking at his hand where Allison had squeezed it through the glove and Stiles could practically hear his heart hammering through his chest.  
    “Yeah, dude,” Stiles said, not knowing what else to say. His mind was diverging again, he was losing focus. He didn’t want to take anything away from Scott in this moment. He’d never seen his friend so happy before in all their short life together. But the dark man was looking their way still, looking back and forth between both Scott and himself now. And Stiles still couldn’t place where he’d seen the man before. And he wanted to know if the bite had hurt at all while Scott was playing or if he had heard any more voices or if he had -  
    “Stiles, do you see that guy?”  
    Well, that was certainly easier than he’d thought it would be. “Yeah. Yeah, I just noticed him actually.”  
    “Do you know him? He’s looking at you like he knows you.”  
    “No,” Stiles said. He looked up and looked down again immediately. This tall, broad man, this dark man... Why was he so intimidating? Was it because he didn’t blink, because he didn’t break his gaze? Why was he suddenly so fearful of this man? Might as well be out with it. “But I’ve seen him before. I don’t know where. And I don’t think I’m the one he’s staring at.”  
    Scott sniffed and made a face. “Well, if you’ve seen him before then he must be looking at you, right? You can’t remember at all? He looks like a guy your dad would’ve given a ride home in the back of his car some night.”  
    Back of his dad’s car. Scott was trying to say the guy looked like someone the Sheriff would have arrested at some point. Well, he certainly had that look about him. The look of a guy who wouldn’t start a bar fight of his own volition but would relish in finishing it. Sometimes the guys who make a point not to start brawls could be the scariest ones of all. Stiles had met just about every sort of violent and frightening kind of man tagging along with his father on emergency calls. Sheriff Stillinski had stopped allowing Stiles to come on ride-alongs when one night a complete lunatic high on PCP and cocaine had actually put both his handcuffed fists straight through the glass of the backseat of the Sheriff’s cruiser and grabbed the young Stiles by the collar, pulling him halfway through the shattered window before the boy had a chance to so much as gasp in protest. Stiles had needed over three dozen stitches after being sliced open by the broken glass, and when the doctors had noted the old scar tissue on his arms from his self-administered mutilation following his mother’s death they had insisted - no, ordered - Noah Stillinski to have the boy see a psychiatrist. Not a psychologist, who would simply listen to and counsel the boy. A psychiatrist, who could write him a prescription and get him on something to nudge him a little more toward normality.  
    Stiles remembered that night, the gibbering drug addict with his sinewy, bruised, pockmarked arms that seemed to be made of rope and wire, as one of the most frightening events of his short life. But he used to tell that story to Scott like a grizzled old veteran. Like he was telling an old war story about how he’d laid low in the trenches while the mortar shells fell around him and blasted his friends to giblets. That was how men were supposed to react to things like that, wasn’t it? They were supposed to drink beer and slam the glasses down while roaring their stories over the din of the party - “I survived, I walked out in one piece. I was bloodied something fierce, but man, I am a MAN and a little bloodying ain’t nothin’. Look here, I lost an arm. Look here, I lost an eye. And here I am, men, a man among men, and I’m laughing right along with the rest of you bastards!”  
    Scott sniffed again, made a sour face. Looked in the direction of the dark man and squinted almost the same way Stiles had when he’d been trying to discern his features.  
    No, not squinted. He’d narrowed his eyes, scrunched his features. Opened his mouth just a bit though his teeth remained clenched. He wasn’t squinting at all, wasn’t simply sniffing to clear his sinuses.  
    Scott was baring his teeth, sniffing at the air. And his canines - the triangle-shaped eye teeth between his innocuous young incisors and wet, square molars - were a quarter inch too long and glittering like fresh-cut quartz. And was Stiles really, truly beginning to lose his mind? Had he really taken too much speed today? Because it seemed those glinting eye teeth were growing longer and longer by the second.  
    “Scott...”  
    “Stiles, that guy...”  
    “Scott, you gotta get a grip, man.” Stiles put a hand on his friend’s shoulder and felt him shuddering beneath the thick shoulder pads. No, not shuddering. Bristling. Scott’s face had taken on a deep flush, his breathing deepening. But he wasn’t heaving the way he used to when he would have an asthma attack and have to reach for the inhaler he kept faithfully stashed in the side pocket of his sports bag. He was taking his breaths decidedly and methodically, his hands tensing at his sides. And when Stiles looked down at where Scott’s hands were clenching the bench he saw with an intemperate alarm that, through the expensive Epoch lacrosse gloves that Melissa McCall had thrown down almost a hundred-and-sixty dollars for at retail price at the local sporting goods store that summer, Scott’s fingernails had knifed out through the foam and mesh like the talons of some great cat preparing to lunge on its prey. The nails had thickened into true claws, dark and hard, the points of them so vicious and precise it seemed they could have sliced an atom in half.  
    Stiles looked up at the dark man. He hadn’t so much as shifted a muscle. The tall, broad man held that coiled, reptilian posture without scruple, without fear. If anything he had raised his chin in just the slightest gesture of defiance, a simple and fearless challenge. And in that simple gesticulation Stiles could make out the severe squareness of his jaw, the relentless strength behind it. He looked like a guy who could take a punch. Looked like you could break a bottle against that jaw and he wouldn’t even flinch. “Scott,” he said again. “Showers?”  
    “Not now.”  
    “Scott,” he said again, more insistently, putting his hand on Scott’s glove and feeling just how tightly the tendons and bone were clenched beneath. “Showers. Then my place. We need to talk. And this?” He picked up Scott’s hand. It was no easy task, prying that iron grip off the bench where the claws had begun to dig deep furrows into the wood. It took all the strength in his arm to do it. But when he succeeded at last he held the hand in front of his friend’s face so that he could see the distended claws, how wicked and curved they had grown. “This needs to stop. Now. Can you stop it?”  
    It took a long moment to process. Seemed too long, seconds that could have been hours.  
    Scott McCall’s eyes finally grew frantic with absolute horror, and he forgot whatever foreign sense of aggression at this dark stranger he had been feeling. When he tore off the gloves, the claws catching on the fabric and tearing it as he did so, he turned his palms upward and saw that the bottoms of them had calloused into something akin to the leathery pads of a dog. Stiles noticed then that Scott’s eyebrows had thickened exponentially, very nearly meeting in the center, and that his sideburns had begun to extend down past his jawline. Behind his jawline his ears had begun to extend to points at the tops, and it seemed the triangular tips were beginning to climb the sides of his face. Positioning themselves higher on his head. Little tufts of sparse black hair were sprouting from the tips. “Damn it, Scott. Can you stop this? How can I help? Tell me how I can help you stop this.”  
    More terrifying still were Scott’s eyes themselves, for when they had widened in shock at his own manifesting condition Stiles could see that his eyes had begun to glow like amber, as if they were the glass of lanterns lit by a warm yellow fire within.  
    But they were fading. Bit by bit, the light within began to go out. And the hair began to recede from his brow, began to curl up his jaw as if being pulled back up into his skin. His ears rounded again into their natural hollow seashell shapes, descending again to the bottom of his jawline and the tufts of hair simply flickered away from them.  And the claws were softening, almost melting. The cartilage had perhaps grown at an accelerated rate and compressed upon itself, hardening like a chrysalis, while the nail beds sank deeper and deeper into the fingers themselves to make those terrible claws, and now it was falling away in miniscule flecks. Dissolving into molecules the size of dust motes and just... Falling away. Shedding like a snakeskin.  
    “Oh, God... Oh, God...”  
    “Hey, look man. It’s gonna be OK. It’s gonna be OK. Let’s just go. Forget the showers, you can shower at my place. It’s gonna be OK.” A quiet rumble of thunder sounded overhead, and in the distance a single peal of quick blue lightning touched down through the graying sky. “Come on, man. Let’s just go. We’ll cope, let’s just go.”  
    Scott shook his head, over and over. Either he wouldn’t get up or he couldn’t. There were tears at the corners of his eyes, but he was holding them back as valiantly as he could. Holding them back to the point of violence. He just kept shaking his head.  
    Then he pulled up his shirt and in one breakneck motion ripped off the antiseptic pad where the liquid black creature had savaged him the night before, and both boys looked down at the smooth unmarred expanse of flesh between his ribcage and his pelvic bones. “Oh, God...” Not so much as a scar remained. Stiles hadn’t seen it at its worst, so he couldn’t have known just how jarring it was to see it healed so completely within the expanse of less than twelve hours. But he saw it in Scott’s face, where the tears had finally begun to pour in earnest.  
    Stiles looked around to make sure there was no one left on the field, to make sure he wouldn’t have to stand or pull his jacket around his friend to shield him from prying eyes while he wept. There was no one but the dark man, still standing with his shoulders squared, his jaw set hard.  
    Bastard, he thought. Who the hell are you?  
    Fine, let him watch. He knew something, Stiles could tell without a doubt he knew something and he knew without a doubt that he knew this man from somewhere and he was going to get to the bottom of it if it killed him. So let him watch. Stiles stared him dead in the eyes, glared at him through the blur of his own vision with an expression so full of vehemence and heat that he might have been scaring himself a little. Let the bastard watch. But no one else. He held his friend close, shedding his own gloves to put his hand in Scott’s hair as he pressed his face into his shoulder.  
    “OK, buddy. You take your time, OK? You take as long as you need. We can sit here till midnight if you need to.”  
    Stiles remembered how Scott had held him when his mother died. Scott’s own father had left his mother just a few years before Claudia passed, or rather Melissa had divorced him and forced him out of their home and their lives after some drunken tirade that she still wouldn’t divulge to her son to this day. Stiles’ father knew why, and Stiles had spent well over the last decade trying to pry it out of the old man to no avail whatsoever. And Scott hadn’t needed holding then. He’d been confused, a little bit sad, even missed his father for a few days after he was gone. But he hadn’t been old enough for it to really hurt, or maybe he just hadn’t ever seen his father enough. The man had always been gone on some business trip or another, sometimes for weeks at a time. So Scott had learned to miss him in small measures and then forget him altogether, at least until he returned. Only this time he never returned. But Scott had never needed holding. If there had ever been a wound from his father’s leaving it had calloused in a week’s time and then the boys had been biking and camping and playing video games again like nothing had happened at all. It had healed over like the wolf’s bite in his side.  
    But when Claudia died the wound had bitten so deep that Stiles had found he could actually pull wide the opening of the cut and crawl inside of himself, sewing the skin shut behind him so no one else could follow. He had remained in there for weeks after the funeral. Of course there had been the instances of explosive violence whether directed outward or at himself, but for the most part Stiles had stayed hidden there in that open lesion in his own heart. Stitched into a swaddle of slowly pulsing arteries carrying a sedated heartbeat that had once played percussion in time with the sound of his mother’s songs. His mother’s beautiful music, which she would play at the Steinway in the den that his father had covered and never touched again since. Noah couldn’t play, anyway. But he would never get rid of that piano. And if he’d ever had a notion to do so then Stiles would never have allowed it. Stiles had wanted to take lessons for years and years, maybe even just sit down at the bench one day and pluck out one or two notes on the old ivories. But every time the idea came to him to pull that canvas tarpaulin aside to uncover those flawless black and white keys something inside of him had frozen, held him in stasis and fear. As if he were preparing to raid his mother’s mausoleum.  
    For the first week everyone had let Stiles be because he’d demanded it be so. Scott had called and called, and Noah had begged his son to just let his friend come into his room and sit with him. Melissa had taken a sabbatical from work and come over nearly every night and sat with Noah in the kitchen and just listened to him cry and cry and poured whiskey for him and rubbed his back. And she’d brought Scott every time. But Stiles hadn’t wanted to be around anyone. He’d kept the door to his bedroom not only locked but barricaded like a fortress, stacking chairs and dressers against it whenever he heard company arrive with condolences and flowers and casseroles because Noah couldn’t cook worth shit. That was about the extent of what Melissa could offer when it came to culinary support, cream of mushroom casseroles with shredded chicken and green beans. If there was a worse cook alive than Noah Stillinski it was Melissa McCall. Bless their hearts.  
    Every one of those nights the first week Scott had come upstairs to sit outside Stiles’ bedroom. Never knocking or disturbing him, never saying a word. He would just walk up to the door and sit down, and Stiles would know it was him by the creak of the floorboard. Scott always knew to step directly onto that one loose floorboard, just to announce himself. Just to let his friend know he was there and that he didn’t have to say anything or do anything or open the door. He just wanted to let his buddy know he was there.  
    Stiles had been so afraid of what he might say to his friend, what he might do. He’d known for sure that he was going to lash out at the first hand extended toward him in kindness like a starving dog shivering in a corner. He could remember the frigidness of that self-imposed isolation like it had happened yesterday.  
    He remembered coming downstairs in the early mornings while his father was dead drunk and asleep at his chair in the kitchen after Melissa and Scott had left for the night. Stiles would sneak plates of food and meticulously cover them with plastic wrap to stash in the mini-fridge in his room so that he could eat cold casserole with the same dingy fork for days and days without having to leave his bedroom during the light of day. One of the house’s two bathrooms was conveniently connected to his own bedroom, so as far as he’d been concerned he had everything he needed.  
    After every meal of cold chicken and mushroom casserole with green beans Stiles would wash his fork with a dab of antibacterial hand soap in the bathroom sink and set it on his desk for later use. He would use paper plates and wash those in the sink too before taking them out to the recycling bin the night after, after the Sheriff had fallen asleep of course. And of course his father knew exactly what his eleven-year-old was doing but he had absolutely no idea how to deal with any of it at the time. Noah had just lost the love of his life, been left with a young son who was already exhibiting alarming behavioral problems even before his mother died and a severe case of ADHD that had been diagnosed before he even knew how to spell “attention-deficit”.  
    Stiles couldn’t pinpoint when it was that he’d decided to open the door for Scott. It had to have taken weeks, but that period of his life hadn’t been measured in hours and days. So he couldn’t be sure. He had measured that period of his life in seconds gone without crying, taken stock of the time by the length of the scars on his arms. It didn’t make much sense to think back on it now, but back then it had kept him sane to tick away the hours on his wrists by drawing the X-ACTO knife that he’d used to use for all the little art projects he did with Claudia - the wallpapered bird feeders and black silhouette paintings - across the width of his slender little white arm just to watch how the dark red blood would collect in funny little globules along the lines he traced in his skin. To watch how those little globes of his life’s water would break the barrier of their shape upon ascending out of his skin and to marvel at which way the streak would flow before dripping down onto the dusty tan carpet.  
    He hadn’t even really been thinking about his mother in those moments, not thinking in the slightest how horrified and brokenhearted she would have been to see her little man doing these things to himself. It was a practiced measure to put her out of his head, maybe to drive himself just a little insane so he wouldn’t have to think about her at all. That had been the point of the pain. He’d discussed it over and over with his therapist and his therapist had said the same thing over and over to him; “I hear that very often from people who self-mutilate. That a certain amount of physical pain will pull you away from anything if it hurts enough.” As if that was supposed to comfort him, as if knowing that he was part of some fraternity of self-harming freaks was supposed to bring him solace. He hadn’t done anything like that to himself in years, and it hadn’t been because he didn’t want to. But he’d decided somewhere along the way that he couldn’t put his father through that anymore, that he couldn’t look his best friend in the eye anymore after Scott would come into his room time and again and see the fresh trail of grief carved into his skin after a night that had just proved too hard to bear without the distraction of a few moments of sweet pain. Scott used to check him from head to toe, never remarking on any fresh slashes he found but instead just throwing his arms around his friend and telling him it would be OK if he stopped now.  
    That was what Scott had said the night Stiles finally opened the door, the first time he’d opened the door after Claudia died. He wasn’t sure how many weeks it had been. But he’d opened the door because the loneliness was proving finally to be just too much for him to bear and Scott had crawled in on his hands and knees and seen Stiles there on the floor by the desk with the blood streaked across his face like war paint, his arms literally dripping. Like a wild child raised by wolves. And Stiles had seen for a fleeting moment that Scott had wanted to race downstairs to his mother and the Sheriff and tell them everything. He had seen for a fleeting moment such a look of confusion and raw pity in his friend’s face that he thought for a manic second that he should finish himself off right there and hope he bled out before Melissa could make her way up to stop the bleeding before he died. But then Scott had held out his hand and asked Stiles quietly to give him the knife.  
    So he did, turning it around so that the deadly edge of it wouldn’t threaten the open palm of his best friend’s delicate little hand. Why had he always thought of Scott as so much more delicate than he was? That simply wasn’t true. Everybody else thought the exact opposite for a reason. Scott had taken the craft knife and pulled the blade of it free and taken a t-shirt out of the reeking hamper by the door, wrapped the now-rusted blade in it and then taken it downstairs. He promised Stiles that he would be right back, that he wasn’t going to bring his mother up or the Sheriff. And he had gone outside with that rusted blade wrapped in a filthy t-shirt and deposited it in the refuse bin at the end of the driveway, not saying a thing to the adults as he passed them, then came back inside and walked calmly back up the stairs to the bathroom where he removed a bottle of hydrogen peroxide and a spool of gauze from the first aid kit behind the mirror. He’d locked the door behind him when he reentered the bedroom and knelt beside Stiles, asking him gently to show him his arm.  
    Scott had been too young then to have learned very much in the way of first aid from his mother, but he knew well enough that hydrogen peroxide was good for infections and that if he wrapped the gauze around his friend’s savaged arms and applied the peroxide to them then they would heal. And so he had done just that in complete silence, asking Stiles to show him the other arm when he finished with the first. He rolled the gauze on first all the way up to the elbow, tying it off before he carefully tore it free from the spool with his teeth. Then he poured the peroxide over it and let it soak into the fabric, and the two together had watched the blood blossom beneath the white gauze in streaks like the stripes of a tiger beneath the burning liquid. Stiles had secretly loved it, the way the peroxide seemed to burn him right down to the meat. Neither boy had realized that the procedure should have been performed in reverse, the peroxide applied first to clean the wounds then the bandages pulled tight after. But it had been an effective operation nonetheless.  
    And then Scott McCall, age eleven - waif of waifs with a halo of messy brown hair and enormous brown eyes like a kicked puppy - had put his arms around his only friend in the world and said those words that he’d repeated to Stiles so many times since, words that had come be a mantra for Stiles on those nights when it all seemed like it might be too much for him to bear; “It’ll be OK if you stop now. You don’t have to, but it’ll be OK if you do. I promise.”  
    The old scars were only now beginning to turn lily white and truly fade. Stiles had put off talking to his dad about the cutting and so many other things for years and the Sheriff had been secretly grateful for that to his greatest, unending shame. He had always seen his son’s scars, it would have taken a literal blind man to miss them. But they were beginning to fade now and Stiles was coming up to be a smarter, sharper kid than Noah could have ever hoped to have raised on his own and it seemed most days that was enough for the Sheriff. Stiles knew this because he saw a measure of careful incredulity in his dad’s eyes every time he managed to get away with something he should never have gotten away with. Every time he opened his mouth and something came out that no sixteen-year-old with half a brain could have known or understood. Every time he presented a massively unorthodox project at school about the history of male castration in Eastern Europe or the imprisonment of Catholic nuns in Santa Caterina in the late 1500s and his teachers would ask Sheriff Stillinski during parent-teacher conferences where his son had developed his morbid fascinations, where he had gotten the idea to do a school project about - say - how the Catholic bishops of Ferrara had decided to deprive the nuns of their city of the basic rights to song and art. Noah always had an easy answer for them. In this latest case it was this;  
    “We live at the base of the San Ferrara mountain range. You know our place, it’s right there just a mile off the edge of the preserve. My son liked the word ‘Ferrara’, decided to do a little research on it, found out it was a city in Northern Italy that succumbed to widespread religious persecution in the late 1500s. I bought him two or three books about it. We talked about it over breakfast for a week straight. He actually taught me about it, if you can believe that. Taught me some stuff I never would have dreamt to think about myself.  
    “I mean, the shit they did to these women, Jerome. Locked them up like animals, didn’t let them see their families and disbanded their choirs because they thought it was a sin against God to use their singing voices in praise. Can you imagine? Did he do well on the project? A-plus? Perfect. I figured it was a history project and he knows his history, and he doesn’t like to fiddle around with the boring stuff like the American Revolution or the Civil War. Says that’s all been done to death. That’s my boy, steady as she goes, only he steers a little differently than most. Like that time he turned in that essay about castration for his economics midterm. But you can blame that one on the Adderall, and believe you me I’ve already had that conversation with Bobby Finstock. I don’t like that he takes it, believe you me. But I think he knows that it isn’t any good for him either and his best friend knows it too, so he’ll be done with it when he’s ready to be done with it, Jerome. Mr. Chomsky, sorry. Force of habit. You go to someone’s house often enough when their wife calls your office to tell you her husband’s been drinking too much and he’s starting to swing his fists around in front of her kids, you start calling the man by his first name out of habit. That all we had to discuss tonight? Perfect. Well, you take care and tell the missus and the kids I said ‘Hi,’ Jerome. Mr. Chomsky. Hopefully the next time you assign my son a project like this I get to learn a little more myself again. I sure never got to learn about anything like this when we were his age. Nothing but reading, writing, and ‘rithmetic in those days, and I’m not too proud to say I barely scraped by myself. This here’s a bright kid I raised, wouldn’t you say?”  
    And what else could they ever say? Stiles loved his dad for moments like this. When he wasn’t tugging on his ear for constantly getting into trouble he really was proud of his son. He had said all of this while Stiles was sitting right next to him, fiddling with a pen nervously, humming under his breath. And while Mr. Chomsky, who still had kahlua and vodka on his breath from the night before when indeed Stiles’ father had paid his family a visit before he could begin beating on his youngest son for trying on his sister’s ballet slippers, wanted nothing more than to reach across the desk and snatch the pen from the young man’s hand and tell him to shut his damn mouth with the neurotic crooning the way he did every day during class, he had instead cowed before Stiles’ steadfast, indelible father. His father who would have parted the River Styx with a shotgun to defend his son’s every quirk, his every idiosyncrasy which he never saw as anything less than an inheritance from his beloved Claudia.  
    Stiles thought in that moment as he held Scott on the field while the parking lot emptied and as the rain began to pour around them, over them, soaking them through their soiled uniforms, just how lucky he had been. First he’d been blessed a father who would forgive him just about anything, if not out of guilt then out of a sheer, unending love that he had no one left in the world to heap upon. Then there was Scott. Scott who had held him just like this once and let him cry and hadn’t told a soul what passed between them on those secret, painful nights. Scott who was still sobbing into his shoulder. Scott who must have felt right now that he wasn’t quite Scott anymore. And what could Stiles say to convince his friend that nothing had changed? Anything he could have said would have been a lie. A lie he would be telling to the both of them.  
    So what else was there lurking in the untouched corners of the world, he wondered? It was something that had come to Stiles’ mind the moment he looked down and saw those terrible claws extending out of his best friend’s hand. What other magical movie monsters were stalking the night at any given time, giving humanity their wide open berth to expand and industrialize and mechanize and raze and chop and burn? What would happen when human beings finally began to invade those most remote parts of the world where they had never been able to venture before, when they were able finally to penetrate the deepest trenches in the ocean floor and the secret caverns in the highest snowy Asian peaks and the darkest parts of the fathomless jungles of the lower part of the world that were getting smaller and smaller every day? What then? Would more secret creatures begin to come out of the woodwork of the primordial Earth where they had probably been hidden, unafraid, biding their time throughout all of human evolution, just as this monstrous lupine thing had done? Would they emerge in force, in rage, to take back the planet? Could something like that happen in their lifetimes?  
    And if this... Creature... If this thing, this werewolf, could appear out of seemingly nowhere on a crisp autumn night in tiny little Beacon Hills, California - if this wolf monster could take a victim and disappear into the night so swiftly that it was like it had never been there at all - what chance did human beings have if these outside things, these secret beings of whatever supernatural cloth they might be cut, thought one day to rise up and crush the human race beneath their feet? To cut them down like wheat or yoke them and feed on them like cattle? Scott had been bitten, savaged, chewed up and spit out. And with the unknowable new powers he had obtained in the process his body had healed overnight - overnight! - and in fact grown exponentially stronger. They had no idea how strong just yet, how fast he could run or how sharp those wicked claws and those awful fangs could get. But Stiles had seen how fast he had begun to change. How quickly he had gone from being Stiles’ doe-eyed best friend, that shy quiet boy who had once bandaged his arms and told him it was OK, to a bridling creature with teeth like daggers. It had only taken seconds, and that hadn’t been the full change, had it? Stiles had shocked him out of it before it could really come full circle.  
    He wondered what Scott would become when it really happened. When, not if. There was no doubt in his mind that there wasn’t an “if” in the equation. He remembered how Scott had described the attacker. A dark porcine demon. A barbaric monster with a twisted, hateful face. Gray skin like split leather beneath the matted black coat. The thought made him shudder and he pretended it was because of the rain.  
    “You’re coming with me.”  
    Stiles jumped. Voice like gravel, hard and intractable. Deep like black coffee. Grumbling. The dark man had surprised him. Not Scott, though. Scott was looking right up at the broad stranger with a mixture of cold fear and brazen aggression. Not changing, though. No glowing amber in his eyes. Thank God for that much.  
    “Hey, buddy, you can fuck right off,” Stiles snapped, wiping rainwater from his brow to stare up at the dark man who had appeared three feet in front of them without making a sound to indicate himself until he spoke. As if he’d stepped out of a veil of smoke. He could see the guy’s rawboned features in sharp relief against the darkening sky now. His skin wasn’t quite as pale up close, though it was only slightly darker than the sallow flesh of a ripe pear. And his eyes were in fact blue. Icicle blue. Icicle sharp like the rest of him. But they were ringed by dark circles, his coarse stubble unkempt and overgrown. He looked less intimidating at this distance and just plain exhausted. He looked the way Stiles would feel after tweaking for twenty-four hours straight without sleep. And he was still so distantly familiar. Where the hell had he seen that rugged, angry face before? “I don’t know if you’re a pervert or a junky or a stalker or what, but you can fuck right the fuck off. We’re kind of having a moment here. Don’t make me sick my friend here on you. You see how fast he chucked that ball earlier? You want he should do that with your head?”  
    “Stiles, shut up.”  
    “Oh, you can fuck off, too,” Stiles said to Scott, removing his arm from around him and standing straight up. He didn’t think he’d ever been so outwardly confrontational in his life and he’d never imagined the first time would be facing a man twice his size who looked like he could fold him in half like a lawn chair. The guy really was just as barrel-chested and generally ripped as he had seemed from afar. His thighs were straining the denim of his well-cut jeans and the buttons of his shirt beneath his burnished black leather jacket were drawn tight in their seams, revealing a mess of wiry black chest hair beneath. “What the fuck do you want? I don’t have the patience for this today, man.” He stuck his finger in the dark man’s face. “Any other day I’d be happy to let you offer me a gram of cheap weed before politely turning you down but this is not the day to screw with me, man." He was just vamping now. His anxiety was beginning to rise with every second of this bizarre interaction. He felt himself getting red in the face, already regretting his hasty temper. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d gotten so angry so fast.  
    “Stiles, shut up,” Scott said again, harshly, rising beside him. “Get back. Get away from him. You,” he said, speaking to the dark man now, “Stay away from my friend. Take one giant step back right the hell now. What do you want with me?”  
    Stiles was aghast. He looked back and forth between the dark man who didn’t give an inch and Scott, trying desperately to grasp at what had passed between them in a few hostile glances alone. What was it about this guy that had caused Scott to... To change like that earlier, to get so aggressive and emotional just from a glance? And just look, it might have been happening again right now.  
    Stiles played the last twenty minutes back in his head, like he was hitting rewind on a VHS tape. Well, it hadn’t just been a glance, had it? Scott had sniffed the air. Smelled the dark man, scented him from across the field. And then he’d gotten pissed off, begun to change. Shift. Maybe he should call it shifting, that sounded a little cooler. Cooler? What the hell did it matter? God, his mind was bouncing all over the place. Too much Adderall or too little? He was almost never sure. He was sure of one thing, though. Scott was breathing heavily again, and he’d put himself right between his friend and the dark man. His hands were flexing, the knuckles whitening. No, please, not again.  
    “No offense to the shrimp here but I wasn’t talking to him,” said the dark man, as if Stiles hadn’t spoken to him at all. Infuriating. Motherfucker. “You need to come with me. Now.” He was so terse about his speech, so unapologetically rude. “You...” He paused, suddenly seeming like he was unsure of what to say next. “There are things you need to know. You don’t... You’re going to give yourself away if you just go around turning like that right out in public. You’re going to put us both in danger. You need to come with me.”  
    Scott McCall’s face went phantom-white in a single feckless rush. White as the calla lilies in Claudia’s vase that Stiles had once hurled through the living room window.  
    Scott’s hands went slack at his sides and began to tremble. Stiles reached out and snatched his friend’s hand on instinct, something he didn’t think he’d ever done. He laced his fingers through Scott’s and squeezed hard. The realization, the implication of what the dark man had just said slammed home against both boys like a tidal wave. And Scott had known there was something decidedly off about this guy - more likely smelled it on him than not - but maybe he hadn’t been able to put his finger on it until he said what he’d just said.  
    Stiles could feel his friend’s pulse quickening, erratic in his silent horror. And then Scott tensed again, and his nails were beginning to harden again, digging just the slightest furrows into the palm of Stiles’ hand. Stiles let go immediately. And the breaking of that contact brought Scott back to himself once again, perhaps out of a fear of hurting his friend, maybe even a fear of passing the... The thing - the disease, the curse, whatever it was - just by scratching the skin of his best friend’s hand. The nails stopped growing. His eyes had taken on that faint glow again, but it faded quick. And with the understanding that had come with the broad, tall, dark man’s words Stiles realized at last where he had seen this son of a bitch before.  
    There had been a picture in a file in his father’s desk, something Stiles shouldn’t have been rifling through. But Stiles had made a lifetime hobby out of doing things he shouldn’t have, especially when it came to his dad’s job. What kid wouldn’t be curious about the current of degenerates that passed through his father’s office on a daily basis? How many times had he waited patiently for Sheriff Stillinski to fall asleep before stealing the key to his desk out of his jacket pocket? Oh yeah, he sure as hell recognized this guy now. He could even put a name and story to that haggard square face.  
    “You’re Derek Hale,” he said before he could stop himself. The dark man’s eyes flashed over Stiles for an instant, thought absolutely nothing of him, then returned to Scott.  
    “Stiles, what’s a Derek Hale?” Scott asked. The rain was really beginning to pour. The thunder was growing immense. Stiles thought offhand it must have been deafening for Scott, and for the dark man who he’d just identified by name from the memory of a police file that he’d hastily shoved back into his father’s desk when he heard the old man stirring to go to the bathroom at three in the morning.  
    “From the fire, the Hale house on the preserve. Six years ago,” Stiles explained. Things were beginning to click into place in his head now. “You remember." Scott nodded. He did. “Whole family died, eleven people. Except this guy. Sorry.”  
    Why did he say sorry? He’d been ready to tear this guy a new asshole a second before. But then he’d remembered just how sad it had seemed at the time when he was reading about it. A nineteen-year-old boy, the sole survivor. His mom, his sisters, his extended family. All gone, burned alive. And it had only been a year before his own mother died, hadn’t it? Stiles felt a little ashamed that he’d been so brash with the guy suddenly, but that evaporated when he thought on one thing.  
    This guy was like Scott. That was why he’d been standing there in the parking lot watching him during practice, why he’d approached them at all. That was why Scott had reacted so violently to his very presence. He wasn’t a pervert or a dealer, he was another honest-to-God wolf-man right here in quaint little Beacon Hills, California. “You’re going to give yourself away," that’s what he’d said, and then he’d said something about “turning”. Well, what self respecting ghoul wants their dirty laundry aired? And then it seemed that Stiles and Scott had the exact same thought in that moment. What kind of coincidence was it that this guy had approached them the literal day after Scott was assaulted by that thing in the woods? In the woods just by his house, by the Hale house. Scott’s arm shot out and he caught the dark man by the collar of his jacket, yanking him close. From afar it might have looked like they were sharing a kiss.  
    “You did this to me.” The words came out of Scott in a near hiss, the claws extending again. There was a fine trickle of dark hair creeping over the backs of his hands, growing thicker and thicker. His teeth grew low over his bottom lip, even longer than before. “What the hell is this? What the hell did you do to me?” His voice was deeper, almost rasping with a series of miniature spasms that were rippling up and down his neck and throat along with a fresh pelt there as well.  
    “OK, first thing, kid? You got a pair on you but you’re picking the wrong fight. Get your hands off me.”  
    Scott scoffed and actually growled. It was a deeply uncomfortable sound, rolling out from deep within his core and rumbling in his throat. Stiles could see from behind him that his ears had shifted higher on his head again. Then the dark man’s hand lashed out, palm forward, faster than Scott’s had by double. The force of the blow to his chest knocked the boy backward but he retained his grip on the older man’s collar. The jacket ripped a bit at the shoulder seam and Derek Hale looked down at the insignificant little mar and then back at Scott like he had just pissed on his feet. “You little shit. Goddamn it, you little shit, they don’t make these anymore.”  
    “Can I offer that perhaps if you didn’t want your nice designer leather jacket ruined you probably shouldn’t be wearing it outside in a thunderstorm?” Stiles said, then cringed a little when Derek finally paid him enough heed to shoot him a glance dripping with disdain. OK, so maybe this guy scared him a little more than he would have cared to admit at first. Or a lot more.  
    “Stiles, get back. Get away from him,” Scott snorted. But Stiles didn’t budge. He was watching his friend shift even further than before with a sort of morose fascination. Scott’s browline was jutting and sharp now, in fact his entire face had assumed that quality, and the brow ridges had melded into the nasion and sellion of his nose so that it made the shape of an angry V. Had that hurt? It seemed like it should have hurt quite a bit. He was actually getting taller and his shoulders wider, which must have been agonizing as well. His nostrils were downturned and flared, exhaling a heavy mist in the storm. His cheeks had become hollows and the entire sides of his face were now liberally coated in coarse brown hair, the same color as the hair on his head which had, just as curiously, not grown any longer. His jawline had plumped with a layer of thick muscle, all the better to make use of those long slashing teeth. All the better to eat you with, my dear.  
    “Kid, you’re standing in wolf skin a hundred yards away from a populated building where there are still at least fifty or sixty people still milling around inside. Your little tyke buddies in drama club and the marching band practicing in the gymnasium. You hear that too, don’t you? Tell me you don’t hear that. There are teachers and administrators in that building with windows facing this direction who could be looking out at us right now. Look, right over there.” Derek pointed behind him toward the parking lot where he had been standing before. “There are still kids over there, and they’re staring. I know human beings can’t see worth shit even in good weather but if any of them gets a little too curious and takes twenty steps closer then this is what they’re going to see.” He reached into his pocket, produced a sleek black smartphone and turned on the camera, reversing it so Scott could see just what he’d become.  
    The boy was paralyzed by the sight of himself, like Frankenstein’s monster the first time he saw his own reflection in a pool of water. He let go of the older man’s jacket, snatched the phone out of his hand. He reached up to pull aside his lip, which had hardened and darkened into the texture of freshly tanned leather, and touched one long white fang with the pad of his hand. Was it a hand or a paw? It seemed more a hand still, the thumb still opposable and the joints articulate. His own talon cut his gums and he dropped the phone in the mud pooling at his feet.  
    “Oh, for fuck’s sake, kid. My jacket and my phone?” Derek Hale swore and leaned down to retrieve it, wiping the screen as well as he could on his jeans then stuffing it into his back pocket. Then he looked around again nervously. “Hey, can you get a grip?” He snapped a finger at Stiles. “You. Shrimp.” Stiles started and made a face, pointing at his own chest - saying who, me? “Yeah, you. Shrimp. You pulled your little boyfriend back before. Think you can do it again and manage to not get chomped on? I mean, he’s showing a pretty impressive amount of control for his first turning but God knows how long that’s gonna last if he stays this pissed off. I don’t wanna have to knock him out with people watching.”  
    Stiles actually laughed, a grim, gasping little chuckle. “Uh, guy, you realize he’s pissed off because you tried to snack on him last night and turned him into Lon Chaney Jr.’s body double? And he’s not my boyfriend and I don’t really dig the homophobic little vibe I’m catching in your tone there, asshole.” A slight tick appeared in the dark man’s face. Stiles swallowed, collected himself. Scott was just standing there looking down at the dark pads of his hands, stunned. And there were indeed a few kids still in the parking lot behind the dark man, sitting around on the hoods of their cars and shooting the shit even in the storm. That was Beacon Hills for you. So little for the teenagers to do on this side of town that they‘d rather sit in the pouring rain two hours after school let out. “And if you lay a hand on my friend, I swear I’m gonna - “  
    The look that Derek Hale gave Stiles caused him to give up on even finishing the sentence. It wasn’t a threatening glare, not so much as an iota of menace. It was actually a little jovial, a strange fit for that hostile, forbidding face. He looked like he was going to burst into laughter at the mere thought of Stiles, five-foot-ten and a hundred and twenty pounds soaking wet, challenging him in a physical confrontation. Well, why wouldn’t it be funny? The guy was a wall of muscle, he looked like he bench-pressed tractors for fun. And that aside he was a goddamn unnatural monster, maybe one of those dark warlocks that Stiles had read about on his phone during practice who’d drunk rainwater out of a wolf’s paw print or put on a wolf skin and stuck a knife into a stump and pissed in a circle to change shape and eat babies by the light of the moon. And Scott had grown a good half foot taller in his transformed state, so imagine just how big this guy would get. On top of that, Scott had said his attacker was in the form of an actual wolf-monster, not just... Whatever it was that Scott had become just now, a lithe little wolf-man. So either Scott hadn’t changed completely just yet or Derek Hale was capable of taking the transformation further. If he wanted to he probably could have pulled both boys apart like pork butt out of a slow cooker.  
    But he wouldn’t do it with an audience, would he? Well, thought Stiles with a smirk, I do believe I’ve found my leg up. We’re not going anywhere with this bastard. I’m taking my friend home and squeezing the rest of this story out of him after I get him a hot shower. Or a flea bath, whatever.  
    “OK, you can forget that last bit. I can put you in your place some other day,” he said, and the dark man laughed sneeringly through his nose. Stiles took a tentative step toward his best friend, who still stood frozen in the downpour with his head hung. The thunder rolled and boomed. “Hey, Scott? Buddy?” Scott didn’t acknowledge him, didn’t seem to hear him at all. Stiles lifted his hand and ever-so-carefully began to reach for his shoulder, tenderly placing two fingers on the pad through his jersey.  
    It happened in a flash, too fast for Stiles to react. Too fast for him even to retract his hand. Scott whirled and bared his fangs, snarling, spitting, his brow clenched deeply in a facade of pure gnashing rage. His talons rose to the height of his eyes which were glowing like beacons, filled with an interminable craze, and his legs bent at the knees. Calves tightened like springs. Only then did Stiles note that a second pair of claws had torn through the front of Scott’s cleats, and these were cutting into the muddy turf beneath them. Making traction, preparing for the lunge. Lantern eyes forgetting his best friend’s face, fixating on his throat. Teeth worked, jaws opened and closed. Snap, snap, snap.  
    “Scott?”  
    “Don’t move, Shrimp. Don’t move!”  
    Stiles’ hand quivered in the air, six inches from those snapping jaws. His best friend was gone, he could see it plain as day. Utterly gone. Something else had crawled out of his skin and was wearing bits and pieces of his face like a death mask. He wanted to cry, to say Scott’s name again. To beg. He imagined for a moment those fangs in his throat, buried deep and the top and bottom rows of eye teeth meeting like the blades of a pair of scissors beneath his pulsating larynx. He imagined them slicing deep, tearing up, pulling out the whole mess like spaghetti in meat sauce. His closest friend in the world chewing on his voice box, spitting out the hard parts, descending on him again to rip into his belly with those long dark talons. That’s what predators liked, right? The belly. The fatty parts, the nutrient-rich guts that people would cut out of a chicken carcass and discard before slicing up the breasts and thighs for the grill. Stiles imagined his sticky guts washing out into the mud, this monster that had been the nearest thing to a brother he’d ever had thrusting its face low into the mess to gorge.  
    The dark man was on top of Scott before Stiles could blink, his arms thrown around him from behind and pinning Scott’s own arms to his sides. He took the boy down in a full bodied tackle, still larger by far just as a man than Scott in his transformed state, and they tumbled together over the bench.  
    “Get your car, Shrimp!” commanded Derek Hale as he wrestled with the young wolf-man who struggled and thrashed so in his grip. “Loop around the field. Meet me on the far side of the track, by the treeline.”  
    Stiles stood as frozen as Scott had just before, his thoughts racing too fast. “What are you... What are you going to do to him?” he asked, and then he took a small step backwards when Scott tried to lunge over the bench at him at the sound of his voice. Derek tightened his grip and growled at the wolf boy, actually nipping at the nape of his neck like an older dog might do to quell a mischievous puppy. “Don’t... Don’t hurt him. Please don’t hurt him.”  
    Derek snarled and Stiles winced to see the dark man’s own fangs had begun to sprout, just a bit. Just enough to put a little more threat and moxy into his words. The precious leather jacket he had coveted so much was now smeared with mud and grass. “Just shut up and do what I say! We’re just gonna play a little fetch, that’s all.” And then he lifted Scott by the middle and hurled him some twenty feet away, further from the parking lot and all prying eyes thereupon. The wolf boy tumbled head over heels, whining. Stiles put his hands to the sides of his head, grinding his teeth. But Scott seemed unharmed. He rolled in the wet sod, slipping, tripping over himself as he fought to get to his feet again.  
    “GO!” shouted Derek as he hurtled toward Scott again, powerful arms pumping, legs pistoning. Just as Scott was able to rise again, Derek’s arm shot out as he jetted past the boy and struck him hard in the throat, clotheslining him in one fell blow and sending him reeling back again.  
    Stiles finally turned and ran, not daring to look behind him as he crossed the field at a breakneck sprint. His cleats slid in the mud from the storm and the thunder pounded and pounded overhead as he fought to keep from falling himself. The lightning crackled, spat fire, turned the world blue.  
    He was coming down from the Adderall. He could feel the weariness settling in, the achiness in his joints. His vision was even more blurry than before, but that may have been the rainwater and mud splattered across his face. But he could see that the parking lot had finally cleared out for good. There was a single car scooting out and into the street, disappearing down the shaded lane. Those were the kids who had been sitting there before, quitting the place to go waste their lives away somewhere else. There were still cars in the lot but not another human soul to be seen outside. Thank God.  
    Stiles found his jeep and the keys rattled in his hands as he forced the right one into the door, turning it the wrong way at first. He chanced a glance behind him, expecting to see a foaming monster in pursuit. But far across the field there were two dark shapes chasing each other in the downpour, the taller one in the dirtied leather jacket running in wild patterns and leading the smaller figure around the tall fence of the circular track, steadily leading him toward the trees.  
    Stiles climbed hastily into the jeep when he was finally able to throw open the door and slammed it shut behind him. He gunned the ignition, pulling out of the spot backwards way too fast and nearly slamming his bumper into the row of cars behind him. His tires squealed and threw up rainwater and a stream of swears issued from his lips as he pealed out of the parking lot and around the field as fast as he dared.  
    The treeline to his left, he squinted and searched for those two dark figures as he circled the track. They had disappeared, perhaps into the grove of hemlocks beyond. What the hell was he going to do? What the hell was he supposed to do now? Should he stop the car and get out? Should he go searching for them, the Wolf-Men Two? Sounded like a death sentence. He thought of Scott’s eyes, flashlight beams, possessed. His friend was gone. His best friend was gone. He turned his headlights on because it really was getting so dark out and because he hadn’t thought to do it before and...  
    He slammed on the brakes. The tires screeched again. Smell of rubber burning, even in the rain. His head slammed forward and met the steering wheel with a dull thud. Stupid, hadn’t put on his seat belt. Hadn’t even thought about it. Who the hell would? His head throbbed. Really cleaned his own clock with that one. He reached up to touch the thickening lump and felt a little warm liquid there, just the slightest few drops of blood.  
    Derek Hale was standing there in the middle of the looping road, Stiles’ best friend in the world - his only friend in the world, his brother - prone in his arms. The dark man’s spiked hair was doused and limp, his pale skin all but glowing in the cold. He was carrying Scott like a child, and Scott himself was... He was Scott again. His eyes were closed, his face heavily bruised, but there was no sign of ragged lupine hair or fangs or ripping claws. He had one black eye and there was a thin trickle of blood issuing from his busted lip and a huge long gash on his temple but the palms of his hands which were upturned in his unconscious state were smooth and pale. No etching of rough canine pads. Stiles opened the door of his jeep and stumbled out onto the road, veering this way and that in his dizziness after the impact his forehead had made with the steering wheel.  
    “What did you do!?” he demanded, clawing at the dark man’s arms, putting his hands on Derek Hale’s shoulders to steady himself. The tall dark man took Stiles’ weight on top of Scott’s without so much as leaning. Cloves. Even in the rain the dark man smelled faintly of cloves, of dark heady spice. “What the hell did you do!? I told you not to hurt him! I begged you, you son of a bitch! What the hell did you do to him!?”  
    “He won’t stay hurt for long,” said Derek, unflinching as Stiles pounded on his iron breast with a single puny fist. His tone had taken on a marked patience. Stiles couldn‘t tell why. This bastard, he made him feel so small. When he spoke it was like it meant nothing at all, like anything he said required no effort and no intent. No emotion. But yes, there was just a slight patience to his words now. “I knocked him out. Pain brings you back from it when you’re as fresh in second skin as he is. So does being knocked out. That actually works better than anything. I just hit him, picked up a rock from the roadside and cracked him one on the side of the head. Hard. But he’ll heal. He’s healing now. Look.”  
    Stiles slapped him as hard as he could. A halo of rainwater flashed off of that hard square white jaw where his palm connected. It was like striking a statue of living marble.  
    He’d never hit another person like that before. He’d never struck another human being before in his life at all, even on the lacrosse field. It was why Bobby Finstock always kept him on the bench. Any pain Stiles Stillinski had ever felt, any anger or vengeance or hatred he had ever felt in his sixteen years, he had only ever taken out on himself. But this dark man, this Derek Hale with his icicle eyes and his jaw made of iron like the rest of him - he could take it. He could take it wordlessly, without complaint. He could take it in spades. He could take it like Scott could take it, because the blackened ring around Scott’s eye really was beginning to fade right before his eyes and the blood had stopped trickling from the side of his mouth and the side of his head. The wound in his temple really was closing, skin crawling over blood and flayed-open meat to meet skin. Like magic. Like black magic. So if Scott could take it then this son of a bitch with his icicle eyes sure as hell could too. So Stiles hit him again with a fist this time, harder than before, sure that the dark man wasn’t going to drop his friend for some reason.  
    Only he didn’t keep his wrist straight the way his father had taught him to when once he’d asked Noah Stillinski to show him how to throw a punch. Only he didn’t throw a proper punch because doing anything properly was the farthest thing from his mind at the moment. So when he felt his knuckles connect with the side of Derek Hale’s face there on that darkened road with the hemlock needles and cones sailing down over their heads in the wind of the storm and the headlights of his jeep glaring behind him he also felt a jarring pain in his wrist, just the slightest crack that indicated that he had fractured it on the dark man’s face without thinking.  
    Derek Hale looked down at him for a second without an ounce of indignity in his deep blue eyes, not a hint of anger. Stiles wasn’t sure what to make of his expression, his lips pursed and thick brow raised on one side. It was almost pity. Almost like he felt sorry for the little mortal man made of toothpicks railing against his immovable flesh. Almost like he wished he could say something to comfort him. After he’d hit him Stiles had to put his unharmed hand on the dark man’s hulking shoulder again to steady himself. Head swimming like he was drunk, legs shaking. He’d only been drunk once before in his life. Arms quivering too. He needed his pills. Head was all over the place. He’d just hit a grown man and fractured his wrist on his face. Head all over the place.  
    “You done?” asked the dark man down at him. He was breathing cloves, probably smoked them in cigarettes or something. Scott was beginning to stir, moaning a little. “You got some more? If you’ve got any more you might as well get it out now.”  
    Something... Snapped.  
    Stiles cackled. He wasn’t sure if he was losing his mind or if he already had but he began to laugh again, really laugh. It started out as a whistling little snigger that snuck out of the side of his lips then he just bent back and howled. Absolutely erupted with it, his sides very nearly literally splitting with this maniacal levity that he had decided on some unconscious level he just couldn’t contain anymore. He put his hands on his face and yukked through them, gasping for air as he felt the storm pouring down his throat. The rain tasted like iron, cold as ice. Iron and ice, like the dark man who stood there before him illuminated in the yellow glow of the headlights. Yellow like his best friend’s eyes, only those hadn’t been Scott’s eyes. Not his eyes at all, something else had slithered out of his skin and worn his face. Stiles’ mind was reeling as much from the blow to his head as the events of the last... How long? How long had it been since he’d been sitting there on the bench reading a Wikipedia article about lycanthropy that mentioned things like bloodletting and drinking piss? Oh, God, it had barely been forty minutes, hadn't it? Forty minutes. That was how long it took for a person’s life to stop making sense. For a person’s life to start falling apart at the seams, for everything they believed in to fall down around them. Forty minutes. As if his life had ever made any sense to begin with. The rain cooled his throat as he guffawed and clutched at his face, fingers pulling his eyes wide. His wrist ached at the joint.  
    “Perfect,” said Derek Hale, spitting. He took Scott around to the side of the car and opened the back door on the passenger side, pushing the boy in headfirst without any ceremony whatsoever. Stiles heard Scott’s head hit the door handle on the opposite side, then the door slammed shut. “You two are just what I need right now. Just the right medicine. All Hell breaks loose on my doorstep and I get to deal with the hormonal Teen Wolf and The Shrimp Joker. Fuck, I don’t think Batman ever had it this hard.”  
    Stiles turned on him, grinning wide from ear to ear. Still bent at the knees, his entire frame was pulled back at an inhuman angle and the entire weight of him hinged on the heels of his feet. Batman. Now, that was funny. It was really funny. He’d completely lost it. He hadn’t had an Adderall since about seven that morning and all the stress and the adrenaline and the absolute, batshit-nutbag-crazy-occult-whatever-the-fuck-this-was bullshit had shaken something loose in his head. Something that, quite frankly, hadn’t been nailed down all that firmly to begin with. He grinned at Derek Hale in the light of the car headlights as the tall dark man came to take him by the arm and lead him over to the passenger side at the front of his car. The hand that encircled his arm just below the crook of his elbow was warmer than any human being’s could be in that torrential downpour, and hard as the rest of him. Grip of iron. Derek opened the passenger side door and forced him inside, actually lifted him effortlessly with a hand beneath his legs and lowered him into the seat before hammering the door shut after him.  
    “Buckle up or don’t, ask me if I give a fuck,” said Derek after he’d stomped over to the driver’s side and pulled his own seat belt tight. “You want in on this? You think you can Google werewolves for ten minutes and understand a damn thing about what happened to your buddy last night? Fine. You’re in it now, Shrimp. You’re in it to your neck. You’re floating down Shit Creek without water wings. Your little friend here owes me something big, and I’m collecting right the hell now. And for fuck’s sake,” he swore and reached across the shift knob, snatching the seat belt on Stiles’ side and yanking it over his torso to click it into place for him. Stiles watched him do it in a daze, still grinning like an idiot. Derek cursed and spat, muttering to himself as he put the jeep in gear and began to follow the road around behind the school. “That’s all I need, the Sheriff’s kid with his brains splattered all over my shoes if I take a turn too hard in this piece of shit jeep. Swear to God, if I take this thing over forty in this weather we’re all going to die in one big fireball. Poof. Piece of shit. I’d go bring my car around if I wanted you bleeding all over my seats. Already fucked up my jacket and my phone. You two are a walking demolition zone. Who the fuck raised you kids? You got anything in here to clean yourself off with, Shrimp? Hello? For fuck’s sake.”  
    He turned on the windshield wipers and Stiles watched them arcing back and forth across the glass in a daze. His phone buzzed in his pocket. Probably his dad. The only other person who ever texted him was lying on his side in the backseat. At the window beside him the raindrops raced each other across the pane in the hurtling wind. He remembered faintly that his pills were in the glove compartment but couldn’t bring himself to open it and reach for them. Scott groaned from the backseat and Derek looked up into the rearview mirror at him. “You good back there too, kid? You gonna go ape again? Need me to bang you up some more? I don’t have time for another little outburst. You can go all Bad Moon Rising when I’m done with you. Well, no you can’t, actually. ‘Cause if you do that then I’m really gonna have to kill the both of you and I’ve just about had my fill of burying bodies for a good two or three lifetimes.”  
    Scott moaned. “Bodies... Bodies...”  
    “Yeah, bodies,” said Derek, taking a turn at the edge of the suburbs toward the Beacon Hills Preserve. It was a Wednesday evening, approaching six PM. There was practically no one else on the roads at all. Stiles’ phone went off again and he pulled it dizzily out of his pocket to see three messages from his dad. The first one said the Sheriff was going to be home late tonight, the second one telling Stiles to either stay home or get his things and stay at Scott’s tonight. That he’d left twenty bucks on the kitchen counter for the boys to order a pizza. The third said that in no uncertain terms was either boy to go outside for any reason whatsoever tonight. Derek continued to prattle at Scott as the boy slowly and painfully regained consciousness in the backseat. “You remember a body, kid? You remember that? I know you do. Poking your noses around where you never belonged. Should have minded your own damn business. And now look what you’ve done. You can’t even begin to understand what you’ve done, you little shit.”  
    What did he mean? Stiles looked back at Scott and saw that his friend was fully conscious now and looking right back at him, a pained expression in his eyes. And they were Scott’s eyes again, watery and brown. Stiles wondered again just how much of the story he hadn’t heard yet. He pleaded toward his friend with his eyes. What body, Scott? Had he really found the body?  
    The gaze that Scott returned told Stiles all he needed to know, that his friend had been lying by ommission all damn day. And yes, he had admitted he hadn’t told Stiles everything, he had admitted that very openly after a little coaxing. But now they were being absconded with in Stiles’ car by a foul-mouthed psychopath who was slicking his dark hair back with his hands and mumbling to himself and swearing under his breath about burying bodies as he drove right back into the preserve where he had assaulted Scott in the form of a giant black wolf just the night before. Stiles found himself suddenly looking at his friend with an expression of cold fury, veering on absolute hatred. What have you gotten us into, you fucking idiot? You lying fool? Those were the words radiating out of his tapered eyes. Oh yes, you found the body, didn’t you? And you didn’t say a word to me. You could tell me about the big black wolf and hearing voices in your head but you didn’t say a word about the body.  
    What did the body have to do with any of this? A girl cut in half, half-buried in the woods. And his father had been out looking for it last night with a contingent of officers and dogs.  
    Stiles had a forlorn thought at that. His father had been out there last night. It could have been his father dragged and savaged in the leaf litter by this bastard driving his car right now. It could have been him. It had only been dumb luck that Scott had ended up alone out there. Well, not entirely dumb luck. Ouch. There was the guilt again. Stiles closed his eyes and sighed. He could have saved him. He could have saved his friend. All he’d had to do was say those words; “Alright, jig’s up, buddy. You can come out now.” And then they would have driven home together and played video games and eaten pizza.  
    Derek Hale slammed on the brakes. Stiles’ seat belt cut into his throat as he lurched forward. Scott had risen, was looking all around them, sniffing the air. Panicking. He recognized their surroundings, the edge of the preserve, recognized it as the place where he’d had his life snatched out from under him not twenty-four hours prior. He was beginning to hyperventilate. Derek reached back and grabbed him by the hair, yanking hard. Scott yowled and Stiles pounded on the dark man’s chest again. Seeing his friend hurt again by this bastard pulled him out of whatever haze he’d been lodged within for the entirety of the drive.  
    “Let go of him, you prick!” He’d forgotten how he’d hurt his wrist. The force of striking that thick broad torso again caused a wave of violent pain to shoot up his arm to the elbow. “You haven’t done enough? Let go of him now!”  
    “What, you don’t see him losing his shit again?” Derek shot back, keeping his grip firm on the young man’s hair. “You get your shit together, kid. I am not even a little bit kidding. You two are going home. Right now.”  
    “What the fuck are you talking about!?” Stiles roared. He’d had it with this asshole. He pried open the glove compartment, found his Adderall in the little orange cartridge. He pulled one little blue pill free from the bottle and shut the lid again. He pressed the pill between a dollar bill that he extracted from his wallet which was also in the glove box, and with his good hand jammed the pill bottle down on top of the tablet beneath the bill on the dashboard.  
    “Oh, that’s really fucking charming,” said Derek as Stiles poured out the crushed powder the color of a robin’s egg onto the dashboard and began to roll up the bill. “Kids today, I swear to Christ. You always take your medicine like that, Shrimp?”  
    “Only when he’s pissed off,” offered Scott from the backseat. “Only when he’s about to lose his shit. Or when he already has. Which, by the way, I am no longer doing. You can let go of me now, asswipe.” The dark man did so with gusto, pushing Scott’s head away and leaning back in the driver’s seat to sigh with disgust as Stiles snorted the entire pill in one long snuff. “Dude,” said Scott. “Not a good time.”  
    “When is it a good time!?” Stiles shouted, slamming his fist against the door then crying out in agony. Bad wrist. Blinding pain. Fuck this asshole. Fuck this asshole so very much. Fuck them both. Scott tried to say something but Stiles tuned him out as he felt the Adderall begin to kick. The little blue pill went straight to his head, the mucous drip down his sinus cavity sweet with the sickly taste of it. Then he began shouting anew. “Which one of you is going to explain to me what the fuck is going on!? In a single day I’ve been nearly carved into souvlaki by my best friend and then kidnaped by our town’s resident cannibalistic wolf monster who has just driven us right back to the scene of the crime where he tried to rip out your spleen last night. Oh, and you found the body last night, didn’t you? Yeah, you lying sack of shit, you found the fucking body and you kept your damn mouth shut all day. I should put you on a choke chain and tie you up in my backyard next to a bowl of kibble and a water dish that says ‘Asshole’ on it. Because that’s what you are, Scott McCall, you are an asshole. You are a lying sack of assholes stuffed into another asshole stuffed into a - you know what? Fuck it. Never mind. I’m out of things to imagine stuffing you into and all I could think of was assholes anyway. Fuck you very much. Fuck you both very much.” Funny, he’d thought it and then said it. “And why in the hell,” he said, sticking his finger in Derek’s face, “Haven’t you eaten us yet? You’re just gonna - what? - hop on out of my car and let us go home and drop to all fours to go roaming around looking for someone else to snack on? Why the fuck did you bring us here if you’re just going to let us go? What the fuck is going on!?”  
    “Stiles,” said Scott, putting a hand on his shoulder. Their roles had reversed in an instant, Scott the one with the soothing voice trying desperately to calm his friend who was flying into the worst panic attack he’d had in years. “Stiles, I’m going to say something and I need you to stay calm when I say it. Can you do that for me?”  
    Stiles made claws of his hands, just like Scott had done when he’d been ready to pounce on him, to cut garlands out of him. He did it out of sheer frustration and powerlessness and pulled down on the skin of his face again just as he’d done before when he’d been laughing like a madman on the side of the road. Derek Hale was just sitting there, his chin rested on the back of his hand. Not even looking at the boys anymore. He was looking out at a soft light in the distance, up on a hill, and it was only then that Stiles noticed that he’d cut off the headlights of the jeep.  
    “Stiles?” said Scott again. “Can you look at me?”  
    “I don’t want to.”  
    “Not what I asked, buddy.”  
    Stiles took a deep breath and closed his eyes, trying to remember what his psychiatrist used to tell him to do when he felt manic like this. He couldn’t remember, couldn’t think straight. Maybe he needed another pill. He began to reach for the glove box and Scott caught his hand.  
    “Stiles...”  
    He sighed, closed his eyes again. Went to a quiet place. He went to a glade by the Danube River, listened for the strumming of a bass and the plucking of a fiddle. He listened for the song of a nightingale, slowed his breathing. Imagined cool grass beneath his bare feet. Imagined waiting for a man who loved him.  
    “He gonna be alright?” Asshole. Asshole in an ostentatious, expensive leather jacket who needed to shave his stupid asshole face. Stiles was glad Scott had ruined his precious jacket and his stupid phone. He only wished Derek Hale hadn’t been holding Scott in his arms when he found him on the road behind the school so he could have run him down and backed up over him. Let’s see you heal from having your head squashed like a cantaloupe, you prick.  
    “He’s fine,” said Scott. “Just going to his safe place. Stiles?” He hadn’t taken his hand off of Stiles’. “You there, man? Can you look at me?”  
    “I said I don’t want to, so say what you’re going to say,” he said, sniffling. Stupid damn pills. His mucous membrane in his left nostril must have looked like a pile of half-cooked hamburger.  
    “I just want to go on record before you say anything at all, kid,” said Derek Hale, looking back at Scott in the rearview again. “It wasn’t me. I didn’t do this to you. You believe me?”  
    To Stiles’ utter and complete astonishment, Scott slowly nodded.  
    “And I was watching you today and I approached you because I’m not just trying to help you. Because I’m not just trying to teach you a thing or two about what you are now and what that means and what you need to do with it. It’s because I need something from you. Do you believe me?”  
    Scott nodded again. Derek turned to Stiles now, who was regarding them both with a mixture of incredulity and something like disgust. “Do you know why he believes me?” Stiles shook his head, his mouth slightly agape. The little blue pill was kicking in hard. He felt great suddenly. Still aggressive, still pissed off - maybe even more pissed off than before - but also focused. Like all that hostility and rage that had been pouring out of him just before had collected in a tight little ball in between his ribcage and he could breathe through it without screaming till his chest hurt. “It’s because he can hear my heartbeat, steady as a drum,” said Derek Hale. Stiles scoffed, but the dark man went on. “Because he can smell it on me in tiny little chemical signals that tell his fresh new senses - the new animal mind behind his puny little human brain - that I am telling the unaltered, unadulterated truth. And he wasn’t even sure himself why he knew I was telling the truth until I told you, but he knew. You’re never going to be able to lie to your friend here again. He’s going to know, he’s always going to know. Get used to it. Your turn, kid.” He finished, leaned back in the driver’s seat again and gave Scott the floor. “Tell him what else you smell. What else is out there?”  
    Scott squeezed his friend’s hand again. Stiles finally looked at him and saw raw fear and compassion swimming in his big brown eyes. “Stiles... It’s the Hale house. We’re right down the hill from the Hale house, from his house.” Scott nodded toward Derek, who blinked and scowled. “And... Your dad is up there. I can hear his voice. I don’t think Derek knew when he was taking us here. Not until we just now pulled up this close.”  
    Stiles took a moment to ingest this knowledge, felt the slow drip of the drug at the back of his throat again. He almost felt serene now, like a veil had settled over his eyes and ears and he was seeing and hearing everything through a fog of blessed tranquility.  
    His father was out here on the preserve. Again, just like last night. Only now he was at this son of a bitch Hale’s house doing God knows what. His father was out here where last night Scott had been besieged by a demon from the old world that should only have existed in books and movies.  
    But his father had a gun. His father had a Glock 22, .40 Calibur semi-automatic pistol that held fifteen rounds in each cartridge. When he was on the clock the Sheriff kept it in a holster under his jacket. During his off time he kept it on his calf. It was a good gun, powerful and reliable. It had been one of the most standard issue firearms for law enforcement officers since the year 1990. So reliable that it was still a common carry for most officers over a decade after its introduction into the market.  
    So what, though? So what if he had a gun? What if this bastard Derek Hale was telling the truth and there really was some other monstrosity out there still stalking the night after nearly putting Scott in the ground? So what if his father fired fifteen rounds into that creature’s face and it just got right back up and spat out the bullets before he could reload?  
    “They found the body...” Scott said. Stiles was only half-listening. “Somebody moved the body, buried it by the house.”  
    “I moved it,” said Derek. Was that a dent of emotion in the frigid prick‘s voice? “I didn’t even have to take it far. I didn’t... I didn’t think they would come to the house. I didn’t think they would... I shouldn’t have moved it. I knew they had search dogs.” It was. His voice was actually breaking. “But I couldn’t just leave her out there. I couldn’t just... She deserved better. And now they’ve gone and dug her up again.”  
    The body. The stupid fucking body, the girl cut in half at the waist who some hiker had come across a day before and called into his father’s office about. The body that Scott had lied about. The body that Stiles had insisted they go roaming out into the woods to look for, that had started this entire bloody mess. And Derek said he had moved it to bury it on his property, where his entire family had been roasted alive in their beds six years ago. A year before Claudia died. A year before.  
    “Who was she?” That was Scott, looking for answers. Usually it would have been Stiles doing that, probing, but there was this haze over his thoughts that had settled like a shroud when he thought of his father out there in the night. He remembered how Scott had described the wolf monster’s eyes, red as sin. Bright rose red, red as blood, burning in the dark. Would that be the last thing his dad saw before the thing slashed his ankles out from under him and slaughtered him alive? Stiles had seen how quickly Scott’s wounds had healed, how the skin had simply stitched itself together. Black magic. No semi-automatic pistol was going to stop that thing. And what of silver bullets? Well, that was bullshit. That hadn’t been a part of any kind of werewolf mythos until Lon Chaney Jr. stalked across America’s silver screens as the original Wolfman. And The Wolfman had been killed with a silver cane, not a bullet. And even if it wasn’t bullshit, Sheriff Stillinski didn’t carry silver bullets. Who the hell carries silver bullets? It was stupid to even think about, silver was much too soft a metal to make bullets of. Stiles had read all about it just earlier today. Silver bullets were a Hollywood fixture.  
    But Christ, so were men who changed into wolves. Where was the line? How do you kill something like this creature? Stiles found himself wondering grimly how a person might go about killing his best friend, how he might go about killing Derek Hale if ever he felt he had to. He’d wanted to kill both of them just now before he dosed. He’d really wanted to.  
    Derek didn’t answer Scott right away. He was looking at Stiles, surprisingly enough, who refused with all his palpitating heart to return the stare. The older man actually reached over to touch Stiles, something that shocked the boy out of himself. Something that might have shocked both of them. He reached across the seats and put his iron hand on Stiles’ shoulder and squeezed gently. So there was Scott squeezing his hand and this broad, dark man with his hateful icicle eyes squeezing his shoulder. And yet Stiles had never felt so lonely in his life. “I’m not going to let anything happen to your father, Shrimp.”  
    “Fuck you,” Stiles breathed, not really meaning it anymore. There were tears forming at the corners of his eyes, but just barely. He was so tired. He didn’t know what time it was, didn’t care to look at the clock on the dash to find out. He was so tired and so wired at the same time thanks to the drug dripping down his sinus cavity and he couldn’t really cry because he was so dehydrated from the Adderall. He’d slept less than an hour last night. He was going to sleep less tonight. He wondered if he would ever sleep again. How could he? Every demon from every nightmare he’d ever had in his short life was now more than a distinct possibility. Every demon he’d ever imagined skulking in the corners of his bedroom might actually have been there the entire time. He finally spoke, choosing his words carefully. Being uncharacteristically concise. “What’s going to happen now?”  
    Derek Hale exhaled and took his hand off Stiles’ shoulder. Stiles actually... He actually mourned the contact. He was a little sickened with himself for it. He blinked after what seemed like an age going without, then looked over at the dark man who seemed so much older suddenly than his mere twenty-five years. Stiles had done the math in his head according to the information on the pilfered file from his father’s desk. The boy who’d survived the fire had been nineteen when it happened six years ago. Nineteen plus six was twenty-five. The guy was only twenty-five. Most people would have still considered him a kid himself. But he just looked so old and worn now. So tired. Just as tired as Stiles was. His eyes were less icicle sharp and more liquid now, more twin blue lakes of grief and exhaustion. “Now I’m going to get out of the car,” he said, unbuckling his seatbelt. “And then you are going to drive back the way we came without your headlights on until you hit the road toward the freeway ramp so they don’t see you up there at the house. We’re lucky they didn’t notice us pulling up. They were too busy digging up my damn lawn. And then when you’re on the road you’re going to turn in the opposite direction from the freeway and go home, both of you together. Go to your place or his place, as long as you go together and stay together. You have a weapon? Mace, anything?”  
    Stiles nodded and pulled open the center console of the jeep that also served as an armrest. He didn’t know why he was listening to this asshole much less asking him what to do next but he simply didn’t know what the hell else to do now. Scott watched, fascinated, and chortled softly when Stiles produced a heavy rectangular taser roughly the size of a cell phone. His father had gotten it for him with the car, said if he was going to be going out on his own now then he needed to be able to protect himself. And the taser was just the sweet sixteen surprise alongside the beat-up old jeep that had become one of Stiles’ most prized possessions in the world. The Sheriff had promised that he was going to get his son a gun license and his own Glock and teach him to shoot when he turned eighteen.  
    “Good,” said Derek, reaching for the door handle. Putting his hand on it but not opening it just yet. “When I get out of the car and close the door you slide over to this side and put this fucker in reverse right away. Tear out of here, get the hell out. Do you hear me? I will protect your father. I promise. I don’t smell the bastard out here right now but I swear I will protect your father, no matter what happens. I... I know what it’s like to lose people. Nothing will happen to your father.”  
    “What...” Stiles held the taser in his lap, brushed his thumb over the little button that activated the deadly little metal prongs at its tip. “What is this for? Is this for that thing out there?”  
    Derek actually laughed at that. It wasn’t the worst sound in the world. Gravelly, but a hell of a lot more pleasant than any other sound he’d made yet. “No, not a chance in Hell. You would never be able to... Never mind. That’s for your buddy back there.” Scott made a noise and Derek held up a finger to shut him up. “He starts to lose it, starts getting a little hairy? Zap him. Stick it right into his gut or against the side of his head or his neck and zap the hell out of him until the turning stops. And it will stop. It’ll work, I promise. He’s a day into his second skin, he won’t be able to hold his form if you do that. And don’t worry about hurting him. I know he’s your friend, I heard everything that passed between you two idiots earlier. I know you’re close, I know you’re brothers. But any damage you do, his body will fix. I think you’ve seen enough at this point to know that without me having to tell you. So don’t worry about it. If you have to hold the charge against his skin for ten minutes straight then do it. If you have to drain the fucking battery into him to get him to stop then do it.”  
    “You know I’m sitting right here, right?” Scott piped up. They both ignored him.  
    “You have a charger for that thing?” Derek asked. “Is it charged?” Stiles nodded, removing the charger from the center console as well and plugging it into the cigarette lighter of the jeep. He pushed the end of it into the proper terminal on the end of the taser and made sure the light that appeared on the sleek black body of it was glowing green. It was charged and ready. “Good,” said Derek again. “Keep it plugged in. Keep it juiced. Keep it plugged in when you get home, too. Sleep with it by your pillow, if you can sleep. And don’t sleep in the same room as him. Now, I’m going to get out and go up there. And tomorrow there’s something I need the two of you to do for me. Once all the red tape is cleared and all of your father’s men have cleared the property. You’ll do it around early afternoon, right after school when there’s no chance that monster will be out here on the hunt. They’re going to search the house tonight but if I’m right about what I believe to be right then they’re not going to find anything.”  
    Stiles was compelled suddenly to reach over and put his hand on Derek’s. He pulled back immediately, embarrassed, and Scott looked between them from the backseat as Derek regarded Stiles with a quiet wonder. As if he couldn’t quite figure out this spasmodic young man who had fractured his wrist on his iron jaw earlier. As if he had misjudged him hugely.  
    “They’re going to arrest you,” Stiles said. It wasn’t a question. Derek nodded somberly, actually managing a sad little smile. It wasn’t the worst smile in the world. Hard as granite, but a hell of a lot more pleasant than any other face he’d made yet.  
    “Nothing to be done about that. I haven’t been home in years. Had no reason to be home, just been going from motel to motel when I wasn’t sleeping in caves and trees. I thought she was gone, too. I had no idea. I had no idea she was still... Well, she’s gone now too. And I didn’t even get a chance to... Don’t worry about it. Now I’ve been home and they know I’ve been home and people have seen me around town and there’s nothing else to be done about it. I’m gonna go up there and face the music. Nothing to be done about it. But I need you two to do something for me.”  
    “Who was she?” Stiles repeated Scott’s careful conjecture from before. He was astounded at what he was seeing, the sudden depth of feeling he was witnessing in this man whose head he’d wanted to squash like a cantaloupe earlier. “The dead girl. You moved the body onto your property for a reason. Who was she? Was she someone special?”  
    Derek looked for a moment like he was actually going to break down and cry. Those swimming blue lakes turned down at the corners and his lips tightened till they all but disappeared. His jaw clenched and the sharpness of his face was never more evident. Stiles regretted his prying at once. He saw that Derek had avoided answering Scott before for a reason, that it was just too painful to answer. But it was already out there. Like the dark man had said, nothing to be done about it now. “My sister. My big sister, Laura. I thought... When the rest of them burned, I thought she had died with them. I thought she died with my mother and my younger sister. With the whole family, aunts and uncles and nieces and nephews and little cousins so young they couldn’t even speak yet. Just... Just little babies. And no one could get out of the house.” He turned away, hid his face, but Stiles could see him in the reflection off the window. His lip was quivering. “But Laura... She made it, and she thought I was gone too. She must have thought I was gone too, or she would have come looking for me the same way I would have come looking for her. I don’t...” Derek looked down, on the verge of some quivering confession. “I don’t have...”  
    And then he stopped. He just stopped. His face hardened again, and he turned back toward the boys with fresh conviction. He was all icicles and iron again. “I need you two to do this thing for me. Just this one thing. It isn’t anything crazy, nothing that’s going to put you in danger. You’ll have to come back here but like I said that monster isn’t going to be on the prowl during the afternoon. You can be in and out in twenty minutes, less if it works. Do you think you can do this for me?”  
    “Dude,” said Scott, chiming in for the first time in what had seemed like forever. “Just tell us. We’ll try. Won’t we, Stiles? We’ll try, won’t we?” And Stiles just nodded again, the tears threatening but not falling because he hadn’t had anything to drink for hours and there simply wasn’t a drop of liquid left for his body to spare. The drug was spearing his brain, sapping his nerves, draining whatever moisture was left behind his eyes.  
    “They won’t be able to keep me for long,” said Derek. “They’re going to figure out sooner than later that I didn’t kill Laura, that I couldn’t have. They’re going to find marks on her body left by an animal and know it couldn’t have been me. And I’m telling you now that even in my second skin, I did not kill my sister. Do you believe me?” Scott nodded, so Stiles nodded too. “Thank you. It... It means a lot to me that you believe me. That somebody believes me before they drag me away and put it in the papers and paint me up like I murdered my own flesh and blood.  
    “They’re going to do blood tests too and figure out that she was my own blood, and that will prove without a doubt to them that I didn’t kill her. But they might keep me for a week or more while they run these tests, while they autopsy the body. You know how long things like that take,” he said to Stiles, who merely nodded again. “And they’ll probably try to charge me for trying to bury the body on the property, say I didn’t go through the proper channels and that it isn’t legal to just bury a body in the dirt in your front yard. But I’ll walk away with a slap on the wrist and a fine. I can handle that. I have money. My family had money, and Laura never touched it after they died. She never thought to. If she had tried to access the accounts then she might have known I was still around and using my mother’s money and come looking for me, but she never touched any of the money. That was Laura for you. She was fiercely independent, probably to her last breath. Never needed the money, never wanted it. She used to go to war with my mother over the money. So the fine won’t be an issue. But I need you to go into the house tomorrow afternoon and check up on someone I’m keeping there. In a bedroom in the East wing, far end of the corridor on the third floor. Can you remember that? Can you write it down? I’m sure you could find it if you just look for awhile but it’s a big house. It’ll be easier if you just write it down.” So Stiles took out his phone and opened his notes and punched in those words - bedroom, East wing, far end of corridor, third floor. God, just how big was this house? He’d seen it from the outside, everyone in town had seen the Hale house from the outside at some point. But the contents of that stately manor on the preserve had been a tightly kept secret within the Hale family for years and years. The family had roots in Beacon Hills that were deeper than just about anyone else’s. And they had all lived in that house together for as long as anyone could remember. For generations and generations. Then Stiles thought of something.  
    “If they search the house,” he said, puzzled, “Won’t they find this person? Who is this person? Is it a child, is that why you say you’re ‘keeping’ them like that? Is it someone elderly? Somebody sick? They’ll find them. They’ll tear that house apart from top to bottom unless you have some sort of Scooby-Doo style secret chamber that you can open by pulling a book out of a shelf or pulling on a wall sconce to open a trap door.”  
    Derek shook his head. “He’s not a child. He’s my age, actually. Almost my age exactly. You might have to really look around the room to find him, but know that he can be found on his back on the bed in that bedroom I mentioned unless he moves of his own accord sometime in the next twelve hours. That exact bedroom. It was his old room. You may not see him at first and even Scott here may not be able to scent him. But he will be there. I think it’s an unconscious defense, something to keep the other one away. The one who came at you last night, Scott, the one who bit you. I think it’s just something his sleeping mind is doing to keep that monster away. I don’t think he’ll wake up before you can get to him. I’m sending you to him to see if he’ll wake up in your presence, Scott.”  
    Scott wasn’t sure what to say. Derek hadn’t yet called him by name until now. He and Stiles both were utterly flabbergasted. The questions began to pour out of them; “What do you mean, won’t be able to scent him? What do you mean, may not see him at first? What do you mean that the Sheriff and his men won’t be able to see him where he’s supposedly lying asleep in plain sight in a bedroom on the third floor? What the hell are you on? What the hell do you mean?”  
    Derek just shook his head again. “There isn’t much time left. The dogs can smell us down here, they’re starting to pull on their leads. Scott, do you hear them? Shrimp, your father’s still knocking on the front door but his men are starting to see how the dogs are reacting to our presence here, me and Scott. The dogs can sense us as more strongly than any other animal except maybe another one of our kind. You two need to go. Engine’s still running and if they start coming down this way they’re gonna hear it, so you two need to go. This jeep’s a hunk of shit, they’re going to hear the engine. But come back tomorrow after they’re done going through the house. I promise they won’t have found him, there’s no way they will have found him. Even after I found him by the Akeela Creek and laid him down to sleep on that bed he wafted out of my sight for a second like smoke. Couldn’t even smell him or hear his heartbeat. Even faded and broken as he was, even half-dead and struggling to keep breath in his lungs his powers are... His powers have grown. His powers have grown like I would have never believed they could have. It’s like his powers have a life of their own now. He’s more powerful than he ever was before when we were children here together. He’s... I don’t know if I was more scared for him or scared of him when I heard his voice in the dark last night. When he called your name and told you to run.”  
    He was talking directly to Scott now, whose watery brown eyes were suddenly evoking more drama and sentiment than Stiles had ever seen in him. Even more than when he had seen himself in the camera of Derek’s phone after his first turning earlier. Scott, poor broken Scott who hadn’t been broken until yesterday. Scott who’d just wanted to be a boy who loved a girl and tossed a ball across a field and kissed his mother on the cheek at night. Scott who’d had his life stolen out from under him. Scott, who revealed in his expression that he suddenly understood everything yet nothing at all. Stiles understood nothing, period, so he watched the two wolf-men and listened and took in all he could, vowing to tear the answers out of his friend the second they were on the road and safely on their way home.  
    “He...” Scott struggled with the words. He had begun to weep again, openly. His face had grown ugly with tears. There had been so many tears tonight between these three boys, thought Stiles. He’d been thinking of Derek as a man but he really was just another boy. Too many tears, and most of them hidden. But Scott couldn’t hide his now. “He tried to protect me. He... He sent the deer, the bucks. The stags. They circled me and protected me from that thing. He made them do it. He made them sacrifice themselves to give me a chance. I heard him in my head. He knew my name. He sent the stags. He tried so hard to protect me. He was... Oh, my God, he was in so much pain. What the hell is he?”  
    What was this, thought Stiles? What of deer, what of stags? What of stags protecting his friend? No. Ask later. This was too important. Just listen.  
    Derek hung his head. He didn’t answer Scott’s last question - what is he? “He was never afraid of anything. Never afraid. And he was the kind of person... Is the kind of person who would gladly give his life for a stranger. That was forbidden magick he was doing, magick he used to talk about his mother making him promise to never do. Dark magick, blood magick.” Stiles turned his head at that but didn’t interrupt. He drank in the words, stored them at the front of his memory for later. Magick. Forbidden magick. Blood magick. Like how Stiles had described the healing powers of the wolf-men earlier - black magic. “But he did it anyway. He did it to hold that monster at bay, and he’d only just come home. We might have come home at the same time. He might have even come back because of Laura, might have felt her..." Derek’s gravelly voice caught in his throat and he fought to go on. “Even before he went away, before the fire, before he left the family to go learn more about how to harness his powers, he was practicing the dark magick. He used to... Used to call up spirits by spilling his own blood on their gravestones, made them dance for us in the moonlight just because he wanted to learn how. Don’t get me wrong, don’t get the wrong impression of him. He isn’t some evil necromancer. More than anything he used his powers to heal. He was a powerful healer. His mother taught him how to heal. He could lay hands on someone in their last breath and give them a few hours more to spend with their loved ones. But he was always so enraptured by the dark magicks, as he called them. He kept his mother’s bones in a bag on his belt and called up her spirit whenever he thought he needed her advice. When he came to us one night that was all he had on him, just a bag filled with his mother's bones. And nobody could ever get him to part with it.”  
    Scott recoiled, both mortified and fascinated. Stiles began to picture in his head a young man of Derek’s age wearing a mask made of papier maché in the shape of a speckled stag with long pointed antlers, dancing naked around a fire by moonlight. What was this person, this secret protector? Derek spoke of him like family, talking about how they had been children here together. Like he had been a Hale. But then he had said “his mother” like his mother hadn’t been Derek’s mother. What was this person, who was this person?  
    “Just do this for me,” said Derek with a stunning finality. “I’m going out now to face your father,” he said to Stiles, and he actually smiled at Stiles again and Stiles felt a secret part of him melt to his own great shame. He thought he heard the voice of a nightingale, but it was just his imagination. “And he’s going to put me in cuffs.”  
    “You could get out of them like it was nothing,” said Stiles, and Derek smiled sadly again.  
    “But I won’t. I’m going to stay with your father till he drives me to the Sheriff’s station and puts me in that little cell next to his office. I could bend the bars of that cell open with my bare hands, by the way, but you probably guessed that. But I won’t. I promise I won’t. He’s going to stay there in his office throughout the night because this case is too much to just let hang and wait on. He’s going to sleep maybe an hour or two in that office at his desk waiting for the forensics reports and all that bullshit and I will stay there in that cell and watch over him. I promise you, Shrimp. I promise. If I have to bend the bars open to protect him then I will. I’ve been in that cell before, your father knows me. Those bars are hollow, they’re nothing. I’ll protect him with my life.”  
    Stiles was at a loss. Where was that frigid bastard he’d wanted to run down with his car? Where had Derek Hale gone? Who was this warm stranger here with the reassuring words, the reassuring smile? Why was he smiling so goddamn much, even if it was so goddamn sad? It was off-putting. But he knew why. Derek Hale was thinking about this powerful young man who had protected Scott in his hour of need, this young man who had knowledge of dark blood magicks and could heal the dying simply by laying down his hands. Stiles felt ashamed suddenly that he had called the guy a homophobe earlier.  
    “I don’t know who that monster out there is,” said Derek. “I thought my family and I were the only ones of our kind here in Beacon Hills, in the county. Us and Dempsey - that’s his name, the witch in the bedroom on the third floor. Dempsey. Dempsey Bonaventure. I thought we were the only ones. But I was wrong. You should know now that he’s a witch, or a hoodooist, or a voodooist, or a voodooienne, whatever you want to call him. A houngan or a bokor, by his own words. He’s learned more than just mere voodoo in the years he’s been gone, though. And he’s not just a witch. He has a second skin, just like me and Scott. And it may be the fact that he was born in wolf skin that gives him such powerful dominion over all the magicks he’s ever studied, same as his mother. And obviously it wasn’t he who attacked Scott last night. But I’ll figure the rest out after they let me go. I’ll figure out who that monster is who took your life away, Scott. If you want then we can search for him together. And if Dempsey wakes to your touch then he can help us in ways that we would never be able to do on our own. That’s what I want you to do for me tomorrow afternoon, Scott. You too, Stiles.” Stiles stirred, for that was the first time too that Derek had addressed him by name. He was unnerved by it. He almost preferred to be called Shrimp. “Go with him because he’s your brother and you’re in this with us now. Just go to the bedroom at the end of the corridor in the East wing on the third floor, and you’ll find him on the bed on his back if you look hard enough. Sleeping Beauty. He’s beautiful. He smells like swamp lilies and prayer. Remember that, Scott. You’ll know him by smell if you search hard enough. That bastard who took your life would never think to look so hard for that scent. I know it sounds ridiculous, but that’s what he smells like. He’s so beautiful.” Stiles felt a twinge in the pit of his stomach, almost physically painful. What the hell was that? Derek‘s eyes were clouding over to speak of this young man, this voodoo witch with his powers so deep and dark. So there were indeed other demons, and their powers were even deeper and darker than those of a man who could become a wolf. And this one could even become a wolf himself, at that. Stiles shivered. “Just lay your hands on him. His hands first,” Derek said to Scott. “He’s very sensitive to touch.” Another twinge to the gut. Stiles flinched, and Derek caught it, looked at him questioningly. Wondered why, just in a quick stolen glance. Was that a nightingale singing or just the wind? Where was that cursing, spitting maniac? Where had Derek Hale gone? Then the dark man went on.  
    “Just sort of hold his hands in yours. And if that doesn’t work then put your hands against the sides of his head and say his name and tell him who you are. He may hear you. He may recognize you, because he’s been in your head before. I say it scares me how his powers have grown because it used to take him so much to get into a human mind. He’s been in mine because I offered it to him willingly in my second skin. Because we were... Because we were so close. But that was in my second skin. The fact that he was able to pierce your mind before you were ever bitten means something. He was able to make that connection with you for a reason. Trust me, I hate the idea of fate and the idea of destiny and the idea that anything could be preordained for us by proxy. I hate to think that any of us might not be in charge of our own lives, but Dempsey believed in fate and destiny because he could see further than any of the rest of us will ever see in our lives. His eyes were able to pierce deeper than any eyes mortal or supernatural, deeper than the eyes of any man or wolf or wolf-man. His was the truest magick I have ever encountered in my life and the only magick I will ever really believe in. He could look at your palm and tell you your life’s story before your life had ever begun. Just go lay hands on him tomorrow and see if you can’t stir him. I’ll go surrender myself to your Sheriff if you’ll do this for me. You’ll be in no danger at all as long as he breathes. I promise.”  
    What could Scott do but agree wholeheartedly to Derek’s terms? Stiles wasn’t sure if he believed in all this hoodoo bullshit but he sure believed that his best friend believed it. He sure as hell believed that Scott had heard voices last night, because even when he had been lying about finding the body of Derek’s sister in the woods last night he had told Stiles about that voice in his head. He hadn’t told him that the voice had called his name or that some preternatural entity had gathered a circle of stags around him to protect him from his attacker. But he had mentioned the voices with clarity and assuredness. And even then Stiles had believed him, though he had believed the reasons for them then had been something else entirely.  
    So the boys agreed then and there to come back to the Hale house the next afternoon, to search the bedroom at the end of the corridor in the East wing on the third floor until they found this creature, this young man with his vibrating witch’s brain that was apparently swimming with old-world knowledge and old-world magicks. Magicks with a “K”. Derek had made that much plain and insisted they remember it. They were magicks with a “K”, as if it mattered.  
    So Derek Hale said his goodbyes to Scott McCall and Stiles Stillinski, aged sixteen both. And when he slipped out of the driver’s side of the finicky old jeep that had miraculously stayed running the entire time they’d been talking, Stiles slid over to replace him in the driver’s seat as quickly as he could. He made sure the windows were shut tight and the doors locked just as tightly, and as he backed up out of the Beacon Hills Preserve the two boys watched Derek Hale climbing the slope with long strides, his arms raised in surrender. Scott heard it first, flinching at the howling of the dogs and the general harshness of their reaction to the coming of the dark man up the hill, their sharp barks and growls. Then Stiles rolled down his window fearlessly despite Derek Hale’s insistence that he take the greatest care in their retreat and heard it too as he drove away, the voice of his own father telling the dark man to freeze though his hands had, again, already been raised in surrender. And then they heard Derek’s cry rattle out over the hills of the preserve as he saw the half-body of his sister exposed again in the moonlight, Laura with her auburn hair and fierce independence. And Scott heard Derek Hale’s cries suppressed by the barrel of a semi-automatic pistol pressed against the back of his head, the hammer cocking without hesitation, and he told his best friend - his brother - what the sound had been. And Stiles knew that it was his own father’s Glock 22, the .40 Calibur that was so powerful and reliable that every law enforcement officer this side of the Mason-Dixon Line had carried one at one point or another in the last decade. And he found himself adding to the tears that all three boys had shed together that night. He thought he hadn’t had a drop of moisture in his body to spare that night, that the drugs and the stress and the exertion and horror had sapped him of every half ounce of water he had remaining in his veins that wasn’t just pure blood. But he was finally able to add to the tears in full as they drove away that night and Scott told him how his father was forcing Derek Hale to his knees. How his father was forcing that dark young man to kneel in the dirt inches away from where his sister’s face was staring up at him in a silent scream. His sister who he hadn’t even known was alive for the last six years. His sister who he would have searched for if he had known she was still breathing. His sister who wasn’t breathing anymore, his sister who would have searched for him too if she hadn’t been too proud to touch the old family money.  
    Stiles found himself crying like a baby as he pulled into Scott’s driveway. Melissa McCall’s car was already gone for the night, so the boys had the house to themselves till she returned around seven or eight that morning when they would already have left for school again. It was barely nine PM. Stiles let that sink in, just how little time it had taken to shake his world apart.  
    It was barely nine PM. Scott took his own bedroom and Stiles the living room, the taser plugged in beside his smartphone and resting near his pillow like he would have kept a keen-edged knife if they were living in the old world where things like this made sense. Where men who became wolves and witches who stole the minds of stags made sense.  
    Scott slept like the dead. Stiles could hear him snoring from downstairs. But Stiles didn’t sleep. Around two AM he snorted another little blue pill and clutched the taser close to his chest. He thought of Derek Hale, sitting alone on the metal fold-up bed in that little cell by his dad’s office. He thought of those icicle eyes melting into lakes of grief and pain. He thought of the iron of that hard, square jaw melting, softening to the music of a shovel digging up his sister’s second grave. And Stiles Stillinski didn’t sleep a wink.


	3. Dark Age Bullshit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stiles, abandoned by his best friend, goes out to the house on the preserve to keep his promise to Derek Hale. But he is nowhere near prepared for what he finds within the corpse of the charred old manor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I redecorated the Hale house. Like, a lot. Sue me.

“YOU are an unimaginable asshole.”  
    Stiles clouted his best friend with his good hand upside his tousled head as they made their way toward the boys’ locker room just off the lacrosse field. It was nearly three PM.  
    “He made me co-captain, what am I supposed to do?” asked Scott, lugging his equipment bag over his shoulder with just a little more swagger than usual. “We’re expected to stay a little longer.”  
    “And ‘we’ constitutes you and Jackson, who are gonna be thick as thieves now, right? Co-captains on a ship to the stars. Kay-aye-ess-ess-aye-enn-gee.”  
    “Weren’t you the one giving Derek Hale shit about sounding homophobic yesterday? It can wait a little bit, can’t it? I mean, if what Derek said was true then the guy isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. Did your dad say anything to you about finding anybody in the house?”  
    “Oh yeah, because he’s always so open to sharing the details of suspected homicide cases with me,” Stiles said, rolling his eyes.  
    “OK, let me rephrase. Did you ‘accidentally’ overhear your dad say anything about finding anybody in the house when you stopped at your place this morning?”  
    “I resent your sarcasm as much as I resent how much of an unimaginable asshole you are. And no, he wasn’t home. I think Derek was right, he slept at the office last night. Hasn’t even texted me yet. You remember how I told you that three hours ago but you were too busy passing notes back and forth with the new girl? You know, the supermodel love child of Joan Jett and Katie Mcgrath? What’s her name? I don’t know, you only say it about six or seven times every hour. Drawing little hearts with her name in them in your binder and tittering like a schoolgirl.” The look on Scott’s face told Stiles all he needed to know. “Damn it, dude. Make up an excuse, tell Finstock you just need to leave early just this one day."  
    “It’s the first day of actual practice!” Scott pleaded. “The amount of shit I’ll get from Jackson alone... Did you just say ’tittering’?”  
    “Up yours. And fuck Jackson. This hoodoo guy saved your life, man. Allegedly. You were crying like a baby over it last night, you remember that? What, you got a good night’s sleep and had a good day at school with the pretty girl and you just forgot the mountain of shit we just had dropped on our heads yesterday? Like, you do remember that you’re not even technically human anymore, right? You remember that I had to sleep with a taser by my head just in case you woke up and decided you wanted a midnight snack last night?”  
    “Oh, please, you didn’t sleep. I got up at two to take a piss and I heard you stimming with an ink pen. Sounded like one of those old ticker tape stock machines.”  
    “Not the point. So far from the point. You’re so worried about dating girls and being co-captain of the freaking stupid Cyclones and...” Stiles wasn’t feeling exceptionally collected, certainly not enough to be having this moronic conversation. Why did he even have to be having this conversation? He’d tightly wrapped his right wrist in an old cast that he’d kept from when he’d fractured it years before falling off his bike, even had the school nurse look at it to make sure it wasn’t too serious. And he indeed hadn’t slept, hadn’t eaten since breakfast where he had only been able to scarf down half a stale Pop Tart and a glass of orange juice in Scott’s kitchen before he started feeling queasy. He’d taken an Adderall before lunch and nearly vomited when he tried to take a bite out of the mealy paste-smeared mess that had been the cafeteria’s pizza. Pizza was not supposed to assume the shape of a hexagon, nor should pepperoni ever be found in form of cubes. Whose idea was that? Had they been shot yet?  
    “What?” Scott asked. “And what? Yeah, I am. Honestly, I am really worried about both of those things. Why should I be sorry for that? I mean, I still get to do this whole being-sixteen thing, right? You’re not - ”  
    “Not the one this happened to?” Stiles said. So predictable. “But I’m the one who gets to keep your dirty little secret now and the one you nearly filleted yesterday.”  
    “Well, that’s what the taser’s for now, isn’t it?”  
    “It’s not that simple! Goddamn it, Scott. It’s not funny!” Stiles was getting exasperated with this, how Scott had woken up this morning and decided he was going to try to go about his normal little suburban life and ask out this little suburban military brat and just go on playing lacrosse and worrying about college recruiters and all that bullshit. And it wasn’t just because Stiles himself wasn’t interested in any of those things. The idiot was trying to pretend there wasn’t this big blotting cloud over all of that now. He just wanted to go to practice and have his captains’ meetings and swoon from across the field at Allison Argent who was, naturally, waiting on the bleachers next to Lydia Martin again. “I don’t want to be the asshole who keeps telling you over and over to look at the big picture here, but... God, I sound like an asshole even saying this. But how can any of this seem important to you in the slightest after everything that’s happened?”  
    Scott stopped mid-stride, cocking his head to the side. “Because,” he said, pausing to choose his words very carefully. He closed his big brown eyes to focus and opened them again before continuing. “Because I need it to be important, OK? I’m sorry, I don’t cope with things the way you do and I’m not saying that’s a good thing or a bad thing. But I’m not in denial about this like you think I am. I just...  
    “I just want to go on a date just once, OK? I just want to play attackman and win a game and then go get pizza with Allison afterwards and listen to music in her car and get to know her better and maybe kiss her goodnight at some point and God, I don’t know. I don’t know how to explain it to you. I know you think it’s stupid in comparison to all this other stuff and honestly I know it is, too. But I never got a chance to do any of this stuff before this happened. This happened to me literally the day before all these hopes and possibilities I never had about my sad little life opened up right in front of me. Literally the day before I met her.”  
    “Is this all about her at the end of the day?” Stiles asked. Scott groaned, frustrated. “No, look, I get it man. I - ”  
    “No, dude, you don’t get anything,” Scott cut him off. “I know it’s not going to last. I know none of it’s going to last. I’m not stupid. You weren’t there that night, you didn’t see that girl in the ground. Derek’s sister. I did. I was close enough to smell her. The flies flew up into my face. Right before that thing came out of the shadows and the ring of stags came out of the woods and I heard the voice in my head. I’m not in denial. But what do you want me to do? You want me to just give up on all of this? Right now? You want me to just forget about her, drop out of school? You want me to run away from home and sleep in caves and trees like Derek Hale?”  
    “That’s not fair,” Stiles fired back. “This guy saved your life, this Dempsey whatever-his-name-was. Or he tried to, anyway. And even Derek... Even he tried to help you last night in whatever weird, insanely profane way he thought he was helping. You know more about it now, about this entire situation. If it weren’t for him we wouldn’t have any idea how to handle any of this at all.” He looked out over the bleachers where Allison was sitting with Lydia, and Scott followed his gaze. “What if this thing comes looking for you? Derek said that it wouldn’t be out on the hunt in the afternoon, which means that it will be after. How long do we have to wait till it becomes too dangerous to go out to the house? And what if some night after you’ve taken Allison out and you’re out there in the dark listening to music in her car and getting to know her better and copping a feel or two you look up and you see - ”  
    “Stop,” Scott said, sighing.  
    No, you don’t get to act like you’re exhausted with me, thought Stiles. Don’t you dare sigh at me, Scott McCall. You slept like a baby last night.  
    “Just stop. I know what you’re going to say. What if I look up some night when I’m with her and see two big red eyes burning in the dark? I know, Stiles. I know none of this is going away.”  
    “So make up some lie and come with me after practice and try to help this guy. It’s not like you can’t have captains’ meetings every other day this week. I don’t want to pull the whole ‘Owe Him Your Life’ card a second time but you kind of owe this guy your life. And you promised Derek. Derek who is rotting in a cell at my dad’s station right now while the coroner cuts his sister up even more than she’s already been cut up by that freaking monster out there. I mean I actually feel bad for the guy, and we promised to help him. We promised to help him.”  
    “Stiles, can I ask you a question?”  
    “I’m not particularly fond of the idea at the moment, myself.”  
    “How do you feel about Lydia these days?”  
    Stiles almost slapped him, just like he’d slapped the dark man the other day. Well, maybe not as hard by half. It hadn’t been that much of a low blow, just a little crueler than Scott was usually capable of. Then he remembered his wrist and the fact that they were standing on an open field in front of dozens of spectators and a steady stream of boys who were strolling past them into the locker room. Danny Mãhaelani actually looked back at Stiles and smirked coyly at him, having heard that last thing Scott had asked him in passing. Stiles exhaled hard through his nose, red in the face, and pulled his equipment bag down from over his left shoulder. “You really think this is the best place and time to have that conversation? Asshole.”  
    “Dude, you know I don’t care, right?”  
    “Asshole. Unimaginable asshole.” Stiles shoved his equipment bag at Scott, stick and all, then turned on his heel and began to backtrack toward the parking lot and his jeep.  
    “Dude, I didn’t mean anything bad by it. I just kind of saw some stuff last night or smelled something on you when he was the car with us. I don’t care, I told you. If you’re confused or anything we can talk. You’re my bro’.”  
    “Oh, for - I really don’t get to have any secrets from you anymore, do I? Asshole. Fine, I’m your bro’. Now go practice playing attackman with the rest of your bro’s. If it gets a little too rough out there, try not to take anyone’s head off. My dad’s had enough dead bodies to deal with lately.”  
    “Stiles, where are you going?”  
    “What am I gonna do with this?” Stiles lifted his wrist with the tight blue cast on it. “Sit on the bench for another hour and fiddle on my phone? Tell Finstock I quit the team. He was never going to put me on the field anyway. I only ever played this stupid game because it was something I could share with you, anyway. I’ll meet you at the Hale house if you feel like growing a pair and honoring your word. If you’re not there by six I’ll be at my dad’s office. Derek Hale may be a prick and a half but he saved my life yesterday. From you, I might add. I don’t think that actually occurred to my dumb ass until just this moment because I was too busy spazzing and blaming the guy for all this when none of it is his fault at all. So the least I can do is go out to that house and try to slap his comatose boyfriend awake and then go to the station and tell him I failed because you weren’t there. Because he said it should be you, but you were too busy being sixteen years old. OK, that came out wrong. That sounded pretentious and stupid, but you know what I mean.”  
    “Hey!” Scott cut ahead of him. “You can’t go out there alone. You can’t stay out there that late.”  
    “Oh, now you’re acknowledging there’s an actual element of danger to this entire thing?” Stiles pushed past him. It wasn’t easy. He was nearly as intractably strong as Derek Hale had been the night before. Well, not nearly. But he was certainly stronger than Stiles now by tenfold.  
    “Stiles, just wait. Just wait.”  
    “For what, Scott? For you to pull your head out of your ass? First you lie and lie and lie to me. If you had told me about the stupid body I could have just had my dad and his guys go out there during daylight and remove it, it would’ve been that easy. He wouldn’t have had to have been out there last night in the dark with that thing skulking around. OK, fine, Derek Hale said he didn’t smell the fucker around last night but that was just shit-stupid luck and you know it. You put my dad in danger, Scott. I don’t even... I don’t understand why you felt you had to lie. I don’t think you even know. But maybe if you’d just told the damn truth Derek wouldn’t have had to have his sister dug up a second time and maybe he wouldn’t be rotting in a cell right now after doing nothing wrong. You confirmed it yourself, you stupid wolf-men with your chemical scenting and your built-in heartbeat monitors. He didn’t do anything wrong.”  
    “Hey,” Scott said, grabbing his arm. “I could say the same thing to you, you know. About lying.”  
    “I told you,” Stiles sniffed, pulling away roughly. “I don’t want to talk about that right now.”  
    “So when can we talk about it?” Scott insisted, keeping a tight grip on Stiles’ shirt even as he tried to rip away from that steely grasp. “I want to talk about it. You deserve to talk about it, you’ve been keeping it all inside this entire time. You always just bottle everything up, you never let anyone help. You ever stop and think you have every right to be sixteen and googly-eyed and head-over-heels for somebody, too?”  
    “You know something?” Stiles said. He‘d had it. He‘d had enough. “Every single second you spend with that girl? That super sweet girl who really does seem like she’s too good to be real and who is probably sure as shit too good for you? Every second you spend eating pizza and listening to music with her? Passing notes and going out after games? Every single second, you’re going to be lying to her. The entire time you’re chasing that first kiss and holding her hand and whispering in her ear you’re going to be lying to her.”  
    “Stiles - ”  
    “Shut up. I’m not done, Scott. How long did it take for these lies you told me to crash down on our heads like a house of cards? Less than a day. It took less than a day, and you know what happened? You didn’t just put some little dent in our friendship or hurt my feelings. Trust me, my feelings aren’t as easily hurt as everyone thinks. I’m not as fucking fragile as everybody thinks I am. But what you did do is try to kill me. You. Tried. To. Kill. Me. You tried very fucking hard, Scott. If Derek hadn’t been there then you would have. He saved my life, Scott. From you. Just saying that again so that maybe it’ll sink in this time. He had to save me from you. Doesn’t matter that you turned because of him, it would have happened eventually anyway. You know it would have happened anyway, and sooner than later. And then you probably would have stalked over into that building over there where all these people we know and spend every day of our lives with here were going about their after-school activities inside." He pointed toward the oblong brownstone length of Beacon Hills High. “And you probably would have killed everybody left inside too. What happens when it happens when you’re around her?” Scott flinched. But Stiles didn‘t stop there. It was too late to stop. “He wants to help you. Derek, he wants to help. He wants to teach you how to control it so you can go on your stupid dates and play your stupid games. And he asked you for this one thing in return, this one simple thing. Just to go out there to that house and try to help someone who’s probably the last person in the world he has left to care about. And not just that, but someone who saved. Your. Life. It’s making me sick to think you can’t get over yourself right now and just help the poor guy. It’s making me sick to my stomach.  
    “I don’t think I’ve ever actually been disappointed in you like I am right now, Scott. I’m actually a little embarrassed to call you my friend right now.”  
    “Stiles...”  
    “Tell Finstock I quit the team. Tell him I’m done. Keep my cleats and my gloves, yours are all fucked up anyway. You’re gonna need ’em, captain.”  
    And then Stiles was moving across the field again toward the parking lot, keys in hand, fists clenched. And Scott, his best friend, his brother, let him go this time.  
  
***  
  
THE dead sycamores surrounding the Hale property were just as foreboding in the pale light of afternoon as they’d been the night before. It was a little early for bats, but there were a fair few of them already circling the enormous Victorian manor’s prominent red stone chimney and the charred pillars that held up the wide leaf-covered veranda. As Stiles pulled up the hill and right up to the front doors, parking his jeep as near to the entryway as he could manage, he saw a single speckled screech owl sitting in the enormous dead oak in the front yard, its wide round face sleepily watching the fluttering progress of the cheeping bats.  
    Creepy. God, this place was so creepy. Felt like it could have been swimming with the spirits of the people that had perished screaming in fire here. And why not? Apparently there was a witch sleeping upstairs who could call up the dead just by spilling his blood on their graves. Why wouldn’t there be ghosts? There was a hole in the front yard, dug nearly six feet deep and then turned open again by the Sheriff and his people the night before. Stiles’ heart broke a little for Derek Hale.  
    He didn’t have to break a window or force the door open. The lock was broken. Well, no. The lock itself was perfectly fine. It was heavy old brass, practically unbreakable. But the wood around the latch and deadbolt was splintered, all but shredded. Had his father done that or the deputy? Had they done it together with a police-issue battering ram? Or had it already been broken? No, it must have already been that way. The door opened outward. The wood in the frame was parted outward, as if someone had forced it open from inside with immense force. Had it been during the fire? But if they had been able to batter the door down then why hadn’t they escaped the house? Guess none of it mattered now. The heavy oaken door swung open on its own with just the slightest easing, creaking predictably.  
    The foyer of the Hale house was impressive, even grayed by fire and coated heavy in ash as it was. The vaulted ceiling was shared by all three floors of the grand mansion, the wide arches of it stained black and broken. Stiles noted beneath his sneakers a creamy marble-tiled floor marked heavily with footprints in the soot. He could almost distinguish his own father’s boot prints from the rest of them, those big heavy Doc Martens with their precarious steel toes. On every wall there were empty gilt frames filling every bit of space, the canvases that had once filled them long reduced to black dust. Derek had been right about one thing; these people had had some serious money. This was a serious old money house here. These people had had serious “Fuck you” money. Well, they still had it in some small way. It just all belonged to Derek now.  
    The long high walls bore as well a series of long tables on either end of the foyer and into each of the two halls that spread out from it, and on these tables were smaller frames that had probably once held photographs of a smiling family. A huge, extended family living together under these amazing cathedral ceilings. What had Derek said of them? His mother and sisters, and then there had been aunts and uncles and nieces and nephews and little cousins. Just little babies, that’s what he’d said. All dead and gone, burnt to cinders. Stiles shuddered. He put his hand out to collect the dust and ash from the tops of the long tables as he passed them by and the filth coated his fingertips.  
    He tried to remember what Derek had told him the night before without looking at the notes in his phone to be sure. He was sure he remembered it perfectly; bedroom, end of corridor, third floor, East wing. He was sure Derek had told him that specifically instead of directing it at Scott because Scott would never have retained that information. And if Scott had written it down and lost it as Scott inevitably would then they would have been wandering the deep long halls of this place for hours. It hadn’t been in that order, but he would end up in the same room regardless if he just remembered those words. Bedroom, end of corridor, third floor, East wing. If he found he was wrong then he would check his phone to be sure, but he was sure he wasn’t wrong. And since the back of the house pointed directly North according to the compass on his watch then the East wing was directly to his right, just as it would have been on a map. Now, that was cool. Stiles had read somewhere that houses facing South were supposed to be good for the residents within, that a house facing South was supposed to radiate good fortune and good vibes. Not that any amount of Feng Sui could have protected this place from the Hellish blaze that had brought parts of the roof falling down. Stiles could smell the wood rot from where the rain and other elements had seeped in through the decimated roof. If he looked up in certain places he could see the skeletal branches of trees that stood on the property and the afternoon sky above. Here and there he heard the skittering and squeak of rats as they dashed across the floor tiles and disappeared into the singed walls.  
    The stairwell in the foyer was as grandiose as anything Stiles had ever seen in his life. There was something coating it that might have once been a velvet carpet but was now just a dark grease stain on the blackened wood of the steps. At the top of the stairwell where it split halfway to the second floor there was a narrow door that remained locked tight when Stiles tested it out of pure curiosity. So he climbed the stairs to the East and abandoned his immediate desire to explore the enormous second floor of the house, choosing instead to ascend dutifully to the third floor. The stairs wound from the second floor up. Where they had only split before they spiraled up, as if leading up to a tower where some fairy tale princess would be locked up tight. Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your gold hair.  
    No, not Rapunzel. Derek had called him Sleeping Beauty. Said he was “so beautiful”, said he smelled like swamp lilies and prayer. This Dempsey, this witch. Stiles hated himself for the gnawing envy at the pit of his stomach, thinking on that. How Derek’s voice had cracked and softened when he spoke of this healer with his magicked blood. He absolutely hated himself for it. So what? Push it down, push it away. There were millions of pretty dark men with pretty jagged faces and pretty blue eyes, and if he was lucky than any number of the rest of them couldn’t change into a howling beast with teeth like daggers. And no matter if he had saved his life, the guy was still an asshole at his core. He’d been defending him to Scott earlier and he couldn’t quite put his finger on why. The guy was an asshole.  
    But Stiles was lying to himself again. Scott had been right about one thing, he had a penchant for lying to himself. Of course he knew why. He hated himself that he’d tried so hard to make his friend feel bad for his feelings for that girl. He wondered what it must be like, for someone to ache for you like that. What it must be like to have someone care for you like that so that their stoney voice cracked and softened to speak of you. His father’s voice used to crack like that when he talked about his mother. Still did when he'd had enough to drink.  
    But enough of that. If there was time for that later then he would deal with it later. He was coming up on the third floor of the house, the winding stairs moaning beneath his feet.  
    The third floor was split into two narrow corridors and little more, so it was easy to identify the East wing from the West. The walls were plain and nearly bare but for a simple empty frame here and there and a few empty sconces which had probably once held electric lightbulbs. He couldn’t imagine even in a house this old and dramatic that these people would have lit their way by the light of candles. But of course, they’d all been able to see in the dark, hadn’t they?  
    Stiles took the right passageway and noted a series of doors on either side of it. Probably bedrooms, all. In old Victorian houses like this the bedrooms were probably all on the highest floor except for the servants' rooms if there had been any, but he severely doubted that the Hales had kept servants like some old Southern Gothic family. On the second floor there might have been a huge parlor for entertaining guests, maybe even a ballroom and a library. Yes, there was more than likely an enormous library in this house. He would ask Derek about that later. It had probably all been burnt down to the floorboards, but how magnificent it would have been in his mind. A giant, well-lit room with bookshelves lining every wall right up to the high ceilings. Stiles would have loved that. He loved books, loved just being in the presence of them. A library like that would have sent him swooning, head over heels.  
    There was the door at the end of the corridor. He was right about this, he was sure that he was. But he opened his phone and looked at his notes just to be sure. And of course, he was right. The words were right there. Bedroom, East wing, far end of corridor, third floor. The door was simple, dark and plain in comparison to the others in the hallway which had each sported different moldings and carvings. He hadn’t stopped to look at the carvings. He was too focused on the plain wooden door at the end of the corridor. Sleeping Beauty was on the other side, supposedly. Throwing up a magickal ward that had kept even the man who loved him from seeing him where he’d been laid in stasis after nearly draining himself of his very life to protect a selfish little twat who wanted nothing more out of life than to kiss a girl with raven hair and hurl a ball across a field.  
    Stiles put one hand on the door itself and the other on the greasy brass knob. He tried to see if he could feel anything just by laying his hands on the simple dark wood, as if he might be able to glean some glint of dark magick coming from the bedroom within in this way. But of course he felt nothing but a hard wooden door, plainer than any part of the house he had laid eyes on yet. A hard wooden door with no pretense and no decoration whatsoever. Stiles suspected somehow that the witch had asked for this room specifically when he came to the Hales. He didn’t know anything of that story at all, but he suspected the witch had asked for the simplest room with the simplest door. Because the house had so many other beautiful rooms with gilt door frames and beautiful carvings and because the Hales had been so well known and well liked. To know now that they had been werewolves all meant nothing. They had been known the town through as decent, kind people. The kindest sort of people you would ever meet. Stiles’ father had always spoken very highly of Talia Hale, the matriarch of the entire sprawling clan. His mother had known Talia just a little, had never said a cross word about her. Talia Hale. That would have been Derek’s mother, then. They wouldn’t have taken in an orphan boy and forced him into the plainest, most unpretentious room in the house unless he asked for it himself.  
    Stiles wondered if he might have known Derek Hale differently in another life. If the fire hadn’t swallowed this place up and destroyed this great old family in one terrible night.  
    Stiles turned the brass knob. The simple, unmarked door creaked like the rest of the house as he pushed it inward slowly, reverently.  
    The first thing he noticed about the sparse, nearly empty room was the altar. It was a simple wooden podium beneath the only window in the room, devoid of statues or ornaments but papered in yellowed newspaper that seemed to have miraculously survived the fire. Stiles could tell it was an altar simply because it was papered in newspaper. He had seen such altars on the Internet and in books. He recognized it immediately as a place where idols would have been placed, a place where the witch would have kneeled and prayed to old gods and called Catholic saints by different names. If he was a voodoo witch of Southern origin - for where else do American voodooiennes hail from then the American South? - then he had prayed surely to Catholic saints, only he had called them by other names. Stiles had read up on it quite a bit, and not even recently. The crossing of Catholicism with Haitian Vodou culture brought to the Haitian islands by West African slaves and thereafter to mainland America had always been fascinating to him. But there were so many things that fascinated him. He really did love his books.  
    Other than the bare altar the only other furniture in the room was a long desk with deep drawers scarred by the fire and the small four-poster bed that Derek had insisted the witch would be sleeping upon. And of course, Stiles didn’t see a thing upon the bed but a soiled sheet and a dirty, stained pillow. He certainly couldn’t smell anything like swamp lilies and prayer. What did prayer smell like? But if Derek had been telling the truth then the witch was there. Right there, five feet in front of his face, living and breathing. Could it be called living if he really was in some sort of self-imposed coma? Sleeping Beauty, throwing up a psychic shroud to protect his slumbering form from the monster wolf who had made the Beacon Hills Preserve its personal game hunting range. Sleeping Beauty, who had chipped and cracked Derek Hale and made lakes of his iceberg eyes. Stiles thought for a moment he felt a tiny crackle of electricity in the room when he thought of Derek’s name, but it was just his imagination.  
    Stiles ignored the bed for a moment and turned to the long desk, upon which sat two tall candleholders. These were the most ornate things in the room by far. They were carved into the shapes of skeletal women dancing with their hands turned up, either beckoning or questioning - or perhaps asking for bloody sacrifice - and when he brushed his hand against the metal to wipe away the clinging soot he saw immediately that they were made of pure silver. The metal was supple and Stiles wondered how these beautiful relics had survived the fire alongside the altar. But silver did have a higher melting point than most metals, and mystical properties besides. Even if it wasn’t deadly to werewolves - obviously it wasn’t deadly to werewolves, he was more sure of that now than ever - silver had always been attributed with deep mystical possibilities.  
    He took hold of the brass knob of one of the drawers of the desk and pulled it open. It was locked, but the rusted old lock broke easily because he pulled the drawer open without thinking there might be anything obstructing it and he felt terrible suddenly that he had violated this place in such a way. But it was too late now. Might as well have a look.  
    There was a book within, a book bound in fragrant old black leather. And this too had survived the blaze somehow. As if protected by magick. There was no writing carved or burnt into the leather of the binding, no words on the spine or on the back of it at all. Stiles picked up the thick heavy tome and flipped through it. The pages were fragile with age, so he handled it with the greatest of care. What was this ancient language scrawled in tiny letters on every page? Was it Sanskrit? Hieroglyphs? The letters were beyond foreign, they formed shapes he had never seen before in his life. They almost seemed to shift before his very eyes, to change and melt into one another to form different words in different tongues. But it was a trick of the light. There was barely any light in the room at all, only that which came in through the small window. This room was like a monk’s cell, small and lightless. His eyes were failing him because he hadn’t slept, because he’d done too much Adderall. And the pages only seemed to be swimming because the words were much too small. He put the book back where he had found it and shut the drawer with a heavy feeling in his throat. Like he had done something unforgiveable, like he had robbed a grave.  
    He moved over to the other drawer, and this one he tested gingerly before he discovered it wasn’t locked like the other. So he pulled it open fully and gasped quietly at the contents.  
    It was a long bright knife. A knife with no sheath in sight sitting next to seven long dark red candles, but a knife unlike any he had ever seen before in his life. It too was made of pure silver, and no film of ash and soot clung to it like the candleholders. In fact the gleaming blade seemed to shine from somewhere deep within. It practically glowed, as if it were emitting a light all its own, but that must have been a trick of the light and shadows of the room too. The handle looked like it might have been staghorn, but he couldn’t be sure. The blade was curved wickedly and as long as his forearm and the tang of it ran all the way up the handle. Most blades would have been set with an epoxy but this one was fixed securely in the intricate handle with a pair of deep thick iron screws.  
    Stiles reached to pick up the knife heedlessly before he could warn himself against it. He couldn’t not lay hands on it. It was just so beautiful, he simply had to feel it in his hand. Iron screws against that shocking, luminescent blade. He could tell they were iron from the color and the weight they added to the handle. Iron was a magicked metal too, wasn’t it? Iron was supposed to repel evil, to turn away dark spirits. But so then was silver supposed to channel spirits. So why a silver blade with iron screws? It was obviously ceremonial. And what were these florid carvings in the handle? He was almost sure it was staghorn as he ran his fingers along the beautiful carvings, being careful to avoid the edge of the blade which looked fine enough to shear him down to the bone with no effort whatsoever. Were those swamp lilies?  
    Yes, that’s exactly what they were. Swamp lilies and wolves’ heads. They were tiger lilies beside the relief of howling wolves, lily royals. They were sometimes also called Turk’s cap lilies or turban lilies. His mother had grown them in one of her many gardens once but she’d pulled them all up when she discovered they were deathly toxic to cats. The petals were curled and speckled with their long stamens in the shape of bursting stars at each of their centers. They were a Missouri flower, a Louisiana flower, but they had grown well enough in the Southern Californian climate of Claudia’s garden. What had Derek said the witch’s family name had been? It had been a strange name, almost comical and almost epic. Bonaventure. Dempsey Bonaventure, Derek had said it with that slight French flair. Sounded Creole. French Creole. So he was a werewolf mystic from Louisiana. And he was right there in the bed, was he? That seemingly empty bed with its filthy sheets.  
    Stiles thought he smelled it, suddenly. Swamp lilies and prayer. Tiger lilies growing next to warm, tepid water. Duckweed and burning sticks of sandalwood. Incense, so soft and subtle it might not have been there at all. Is that what prayer smelled like?  
    And then suddenly the slight floral scent with its smoky, swampy backdrop filled the room, and accompanying it was a thick stew of spices. Black pepper and ground cloves; cayenne and paprika. The scent was rich and intoxicating. Stiles thought a whispering breeze actually lifted his t-shirt around the hem of his jeans. But the tiny window was closed. The little bed was still empty. But yet... He felt something. Someone was here, right here in the room with him. Or... Something. He felt it the way a person feels it when they’re being watched by eyes unseen. But the bed was empty. When he reached out a hand to touch the sheet all he felt was a cool sheet atop the dented, burnt mattress. When he ran his cast-bound hand all up and down the bed from the foot to the pillow he didn’t feel the outline of an invisible body in repose there.  
    There was a sound from downstairs. The front door creaking open again. The hinges were so damaged and rusted he could hear it from all the way up here. His hackles rose immediately. The thick spicy scent persisted, the imaginary breeze might even have picked up a little.  
    The razor-edged silver knife was still in his unbound left hand, though his left wasn’t the dominant one. Still, he turned the blade down in his grip so that the long curve of it came down from the bottom of his fist, and he raised it to the height of his throat as he went to the door which had closed on its own behind him when he entered and pressed his ear against it to listen.  
    Footsteps. There were plodding footfalls echoing through the foyer of the house. He rushed over to the window and forced it open, pulling loose a mess of cobwebs as he did so. A myriad of little black spiderlings scuttled away from under the rattling frame and took refuge in the ceiling. Stiles repressed his horror at the spiders. Leaning out he tried to see around the building to see if there was someone parked at the front of the house, maybe an officer who’d been sent to do a second sweep of the house. It wasn’t unheard of. But if his dad had sent somebody then they would have called out when they came into the house because his jeep was parked right outside. There wasn’t anyone who worked under his dad who wouldn’t recognize his jeep, and he couldn’t see around the side of the massive house anyway.  
    He shut the window and moved back to the door, which he opened as slowly and soundlessly as he possibly could. The footsteps had quit the foyer, were climbing the first set of stairs. He heard someone trying the knob on the same narrow door at the first landing that he had attempted to open earlier. Then the intruder moved on to the second floor of the house. Stiles stole out into the narrow hallway, the knife still held at the ready. The scent of swamp lilies and spice followed him. He’d thought for a moment it wasn’t much to worry about, that if he could hear human footfalls then it must only be a human being who had entered the house behind him. But then he’d remembered that he’d spent the last twenty-four hours of his life in the company of men who were only human when they wanted to be. That Derek Hale and Scott McCall weren’t the only ones. He remembered what Derek had said, that the red-eyed monster that had bitten Scott wouldn’t be on the hunt at this time of day. But it was a dark downcast day, just as downcast as the day before, and the sun was low in the sky already and obscured by dark gray clouds. And even if that creature wasn’t hunting on four legs it didn’t mean it couldn’t do so on two.  
    So what the hell do I think I’m going to do, thought Stiles? What the hell did he know about fending off an attacker with a knife, human or otherwise? Besides, it was a silver knife, and silver was brittle. The knife was purely ceremonial. Still, trapped on the narrow third floor as he was now with the intruder moving steadily higher through the house, he felt better with the knife in his hand. Even if he had never so much as sliced fruit before in his life - even if there was a greater chance of wounding himself with the long curved blade than anything else - it gave him some small measure of comfort though his palm was sweating and shaking just a bit around the ornate carved handle. The blade was thinner than paper at its edge, the tip so sharp and pointed it might have been hewn from the fang of a demon. It didn’t look like it would need very much coaxing at all to sink into flesh. It might break if it met bone but it would give him a chance if he needed one.  
    The footsteps were winding up the stairs to the third floor, faster now. Stiles stood just short of the landing and realized the intruder was climbing up the West stairs, that they were going to come up the landing on the other side. So that gave him something of an advantage. He could turn quickly and duck into one of the bedrooms if he needed to and pray that the room had functioning locks. He wondered for a second if he shouldn’t call out, if he shouldn’t make himself known just in case it was an officer with a gun. Never wanted to surprise a man carrying a piece, certainly not in this creepy old house. But he had a sinking feeling that it wasn’t and that giving himself away was the dumbest thing he could have done in that moment. Besides, if the intruder wasn’t human then they already knew he was there. The sound of steps wound and wound up the spiraling stairs, faster and faster. He gripped the knife hard, lowered his posture, breathed out of his nostrils. Just stick the bastard and run, that’s what he would do. Just stick the bastard and run.  
    “Stiles? Are you up there?”  
    ...son of a bitch.  
    “Scott!?”  
    “Oh, Jesus,” came the relieved reply from Scott McCall as his tousled head appeared at the West landing and crossed the hallway toward his friend. To Stiles‘ utter surprise, Scott rushed right up to him and threw his arms around his neck in a tight embrace. “I couldn’t smell you anymore when I entered the house. Like your scent just stopped at the door. All I could smell was flowers and pepper. Smelled like Cajun cooking. But I couldn’t smell you anymore the second I stepped through the door. Couldn’t smell anything but those flowers. I didn’t...” His voice was catching against Stiles’ neck. “I thought... Oh, my God, it’s getting so dark, I thought...”  
    “Scott,” Stiles said, making sure to keep the hand holding the knife well away from his friend as he held tightly to him in the close hallway. “What are you doing here? What happened to your captains’ meeting?”  
    “I know, I’m sorry. It ran late, really late, and then Finstock chewed me out for letting you leave. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. By the time I left it was already almost six so I just went straight to the station but your dad had gone home for the day and the deputy said he hadn’t seen you today and he wouldn’t let me talk to Derek so I hoofed it here. Fast as I could. I turned on the way, ran along the road just beyond the trees. I did it all on my own.” He actually seemed a little excited by that, a little proud. “I thought you were in danger so I began to wig out, running as hard as I could. And suddenly it just happened and I dropped to all fours and I got here as fast as I could. Didn’t lose my shit, didn’t try to kill anyone. I kept it cool, and the second I got here I just decided to change back and it happened. Holy shit, man, what are you still doing here? It’s getting so dark.”  
    “Scott...” Stiles said, confused. Utterly confused. He felt like he was coming out of a trance all of a sudden. There was a slight humming at the back of his head. A weird white background noise, like something that would come off a fluorescent light or an old television. “What do you mean? What the hell are you talking about? I’ve only been here twenty minutes. What do you mean ‘it was already almost six’? I just got here.” But then he looked above him, looked up through the broken ceiling and saw that it had gotten darker and darker in the last few minutes alone. Had they just been minutes? The gloom was almost entirely settled over the sky, the light of the sun nearly gone altogether now. He looked down at his watch. It said four-fifteen. But as he looked closer at it he saw that the second hand had stopped ticking. The compass was still pointing true toward magnetic North, but the watch itself had stopped entirely. “Scott... How long were you in the house looking for me? What time is it?”  
    “I got here around six-twenty,” Scott answered, and Stiles actually felt the color blanch from his face. He pulled out his phone. It was six-fifty-five. It really was, his phone hadn‘t stopped. It was almost seven PM. And there were about six texts from his dad and he was sure they were all asking him where the hell he was. “Don’t worry, I texted your dad. Said you were with me, said you’d forgotten your phone in your locker. I forgot what Derek said last night. Dumb, but I forgot what room and what floor and which side of the house and I couldn’t even tell East from West after I walked in the door. Like something here was distorting all my senses. I wandered and wandered and kept getting lost and ending up in the same rooms. I called your name over and over. You couldn’t hear me calling your name?”  
    Stiles shook his head, his voice all but failing him. “Not until you were just coming up the stairs here. Not until just now."  
    The book, thought Stiles. How long was I staring at the book, those foreign shifting letters? How long have I been crouched in this hallway clutching this knife?  
    “Dude, what is that?” Scott asked. He had taken note of the knife as well, and Stiles shook his head again.  
    “Don’t worry about it. Found it. Heard someone in the house. Thought I might need it. Come here.” He took Scott by the arm and led him back toward the room with the altar. The witch’s bedroom where apparently he had been standing staring at the swimming letters in what he was sure now was a book of spells for over two hours. The door creaked open and the floral, spicy scent was stronger than ever now. A soft breeze came through the door even though he had closed the window earlier. But of course, it must have come down through the open ceiling. That was all. And he had just lost track of time, and the batteries in his watch had just conveniently died. It couldn’t be anything more than that, could it? Had that dusty leather thing really been some sort of grimoire? He saw the desk where the book had been and rushed over to it. He put the knife down atop the desk and opened the drawer with the broken lock, just to see if it was still there. Just to make sure it hadn’t maybe come alive and scuttled out of the desk like a crab, out of the house, out into the night to do evil. There must have been a lock on that drawer for a reason. That thing must not have been meant to have ever been touched by anyone but the witch.  
    The thick black book was still there, but he shut the drawer again immediately. He wasn’t going to touch that evil thing again.  
    “Wow, so that’s him, huh?”  
    Stiles turned fast on his heel. He looked at the bed. No, there was still no one there. But Scott was looking at it like there was. How could that be? If this wasn’t just a nightmare he prayed he might wake from at any minute then Stiles had been in this room alone for hours. He was sure he’d been alone, he’d seen no one at all there on the bed. He had felt things he couldn’t explain here and there, but there was nothing there. And time had passed much too fast and he felt his head swimming as if he were just waking from a dream, but he was sure there was nothing there. And yet... And yet, if he really focused he thought he could make out now a faint outline of something against the dirty sheets. “Scott, you can... You can see someone there?”      
    Scott looked at him, confused. “You can’t?” Then he must have remembered what Derek had said last night. “Oh...” Dark magicks. That’s what the dark man had said.  
    Stiles swallowed hard, narrowed his eyes, inched closer to the bed. It was too dark. The dark of this place was seeping into his bones, into his mind. Then he had a thought, and he turned to the drawer where he had found the ceremonial knife and extricated one of the dark red candles. He put it into one of the skeletal candleholders and fished in his pocket for a lighter. Found nothing. Scott wouldn’t have one either. He looked in the drawer again and found, mercifully, a book of matches. He broke the first two before he got one lit, and he held the wick of the candle in the flame until it caught and the flickering orange fire transferred from match to candle. It cast a vast glow over the small room despite being only one lone candle. The deep red wax immediately began to run down the stick and collect in the boney hands of the skeletal woman holding her palms upward. Asking for sacrifice.  
    Stiles leapt back, actually yelped. He struggled not to drop the candleholder in his sudden shock and terror as he landed on his ass on the hard wooden floor and threw up dust and ash all around him. He held the candle aloft, pulled himself to his feet. It stayed lit though the cool breeze had quickened immensely in the room. Scott was looking up and around now and wondering himself if that breeze was natural. Stiles was sure now that it wasn’t. There was nothing natural about this place, about this room.  
    There was a young man on the bed with coffee-colored skin flecked with dark freckles and thick black hair. Stiles began to hyperventilate a little until Scott put his hand on his shoulder and he remembered that his friend was right there, that he wasn’t alone in this house anymore with that evil book and that gleaming long silver knife and the swampy scent of prayer. The guy hadn’t been there before, he would have sworn to any god that the guy hadn’t been there before. He wasn’t crazy. This house hadn’t driven him crazy yet, he was sure of it. But when he had lit the dark red candle in the silver candleholder it was as if a cloak of shadows had lifted off the bed and the young man just appeared. He just shimmered into being, lidded eyes bearing thick long lashes and lips wide and ripe. Stiles carefully came closer to the bed, putting one hand on Scott’s on his shoulder, making sure Scott wouldn’t let him go. He held the candle over the sleeping young man’s form.  
    “I touched the bed,” he stammered. “I put my hands all over it, top to bottom. There wasn’t anybody there. There wasn’t anybody there at all.” But Scott had seen the young man there the second he entered the room. Well, Derek had said they might have a connection after that experience they’d shared two nights ago. The big black wolf, the circle of stags, the dark magick. Blood magick. So this is what a witch looks like, thought Stiles.  
    His face was a smooth mixture of dark Spanish and African features, high rounded cheekbones and thick dark eyebrows. His nose was long and thin but the nostrils wide. The bridge of his nose was very crooked, but there was nothing unattractive about it. His hair was long and slick. He wore some of it in tight braids, four plaited tendrils that fell just around his face, and the braids were tied off at the ends into four small golden bands. He had a gold hoop in his septum and several gold hoops in the high cartilage of both ears, and in each of the lobes of his ears he wore two tiny gold studs. Derek was right. He really was very beautiful. Sleeping Beauty. His clothes were in tatters, streaked with dried mud. No, not just mud. There was blood, too. A lot of blood. It was nearly all blood, now that Stiles looked closer. His gray jeans were torn at the knees and his gray cotton shirt beneath his tightly cinched coat was ripped to absolute shreds. He was wearing a pair of dirty hiking boots and his belt was nothing more than a length of thick rope threaded through the loops of his jeans.  
    And there was the bag at his hip that Derek had talked about, the satchel with his mother’s bones. It was lashed right onto the rope belt with a smaller length of cord, a little copper cord. The only thing that he’d been carrying with him when he showed up on the Hales’ door. How young had he been? Derek said they had been children together in this house. Stiles imagined a miniature version of this beautiful young man, little more than a tyke with huge dark eyes and long dark hair and smooth dark skin and none of the glittering gold jewelry yet in his face and ears. He imagined the boy standing in rags not unlike the ones that adorned him now on that wide veranda out front, knocking on the door. Asking for safety, asking for shelter. Where had this beautiful young man come from? What was his story? He wanted so badly to know.  
    He imagined then, too, the boy a little older, a lot taller. Maybe he was sixteen, Stiles’ and Scott’s age. Maybe he was sixteen and lean and tall like he was now and he and Derek Hale were sitting on this bed together, fingers laced together. Blood running hot, lips pressed against lips, tongues tangled, the young dark man’s hands gripping the small of the young witch’s back and roaming his body wildly. Stiles actually felt his face get hot at the thought. His ears burned, angry. Push it down, put it away. Later. Deal with that later.  
    Scott was at a loss as to what to do. It was clear that Stiles’ fear and anxiety about this place had rubbed off onto him. Well, no. He had already been roaming the house, feeling the uneasiness in the air, the tension that must have been nothing more than some secret power coming off of this sleeping creature in the bed who hadn’t been there before. Stiles put the candleholder aside, set it on the desk.  
    “Should I... Should I do it?” Scott asked apprehensively. He was afraid. He was really, truly afraid. He had seen how Stiles reacted when he lit the candle, he believed wholeheartedly that his friend hadn’t seen the young man there until he lit the candle. That dark red candle. It had a strange smell to it as it burned and dripped over the skeletal silver woman. Were the candles steeped in magick, too? Stiles wondered with hidden fear if he hadn’t done something irreversible when he lit that candle. Scott reached a hand tentatively toward the sleeping witch, just lightly brushed the calloused dark skin of his finger where it came out of his tattered glove. “He’s warm.”  
    “Take of his gloves, I think,” said Stiles. Scott nodded and did so gently, putting the dingy leather gloves aside and then bravely taking both of the young man’s hands in his own. And then he offered one of those rough dark hands to Stiles.  
    “If both of us do it, maybe... I don’t... I don’t really feel anything. I mean, I can feel his pulse. He’s alive, obviously.”  
    “No, man,” Stiles said, petrified at the sight of that hand with its long cracked fingernails. He had already laid hands on the knife and the book. That evil book. He was terrified of this beautiful young man who had appeared out of nowhere like a waking dream. “I can’t. I can’t. Derek said it should be you. I can’t. He said to say his name. You should say his name.”  
    “Stiles, you gotta help me, man. I’m scared shitless here. I’m sorry I didn’t come earlier. I’m so sorry, but you gotta help me with this. I wasn’t prepared for this. This place doesn’t feel right. None of this feels right. This house is really getting under my skin. I’m sorry, I really was being shitty earlier. I really was being selfish. I’m so sorry. Please don’t make me do this alone.”  
    Stiles looked at Scott, at his wet pleading eyes, and at the witch’s open palm. The calluses were thick, but nothing like the pads of a wolf. He took a deep breath, thought of the dark man sitting alone in the cell next to his father’s office. He relented and took the witch’s hand, and together he and Scott each held one of the young man’s hands and said his name. He felt stupid but he did it anyway. “Dempsey. Wake up. Derek sent us here, Derek needs you. Dempsey, Dempsey, Dempsey. Dempsey Bonaventure. Wake up.”  
    Nothing happened.  
    “Try his face now,” said Stiles when the young man’s breathing remained as shallow and even as before. He kept his grip on the hand he’d been offered as Scott laid the other down and put both of his hands on the sides of the witch’s face.  
    “Dempsey,” Scott said again, barely whispering. “Derek sent us. Derek needs you. Dempsey Bonaventure, you remember me? I remember you. You saved my life. We’re trying to help you now. I’m trying to pay you back. Can you hear us? Can you come out of this? Derek needs you, he needs you to come out of this if you can. Derek needs you, Dempsey. Do you remember me? My name is Scott McCall and I remember you. You saved my life. My name is Scott McCall and you saved my life.”  
    Something caught Scott’s eye, something that had fluttered in the little window. And then the both of them heard a sound. It was an altogether unpleasant sound, a harsh, hurried scraping sound. Then a rhythmic tapping, as if on glass.  
    Schlck, schlck. Rappa-tap-tap, rappa-tap-tap.  
    Scott was looking past Stiles as if the Grim Reaper himself was knocking on the window, carrying a sickle in a long black robe. His pupils had dilated in terror.  
    Stiles looked behind him reluctantly, slowly - fearfully - still holding onto that calloused hand, and beheld with absolute horror the gigantic screech owl from before caught in the flickering glow of the dark red candle. The one that had been sitting in the dead oak tree and watching the wheeling bats. He almost cried out again at the sight of it. It had come to perch right on the outer sill of the window, huge glaring yellow eyes looking directly in at the two boys by the witch’s bedside. It was rasping on the glass with one long black talon and pecking out that awful rhythm with its beak. Schlck, schlck. Rappa-tap-tap, rappa-tap-tap.  
    “What the fuck?” Stiles hissed, squeezing the witch’s hand. Hard. Scott looked like he was going to either cry or be sick. “What the fuck? Oh, my God, what the fuck!?”  
    Stiles looked down in a sudden fury at the young man’s sleeping face. The witch’s narrow breast rose and fell slowly with his breaths. The enormous owl continued making its terrifying little song on the glass. Schlck, schlck. Rappa-tap-tap, rappa-tap-tap.  
    This son of a bitch...  
    “That’s it. I’ve had it with you. You get up now, you bastard,” Stiles swore. “I’m not playing anymore, you get up now so we can get the hell out of this house and as far the hell away from you as we can. Whatever games you think you’ve been playing with me this entire time, I’m done playing. I know it’s been you this entire time. There’s nothing wrong with this house at all, is there? All of this darkness and bad vibes, it’s all just been seeping right out of you. Right out of your fucking pores. Making me think I’d only been here twenty minutes when hours had passed. You and your voodoo bullshit. Well, you get the fuck up right now. I’m done with your games.”  
    “Stiles... Stiles, I heard something.”  
    Schlck, schlck. Rappa-tap-tap, rappa-tap-tap. It was getting faster. The owl was pounding away at the window now in a maddening staccato.  
    “I’m not deaf, Scott, I can hear it too. And that’s you out there, isn’t it?” he stood up angrily and tossed down the witch’s dark rough hand. “I don’t know how you’re doing it, but that’s not just an owl, is it? It’s you, it’s been you this entire fucking time!”  
    “Stiles... Stiles, we need to go. We need to go now. We need to get out of here, we need to get to the car.”  
    Rappa-tap-tap, rappa-tap-tap.  
    Rappa-tap-tap, rappa-tap-tap.  
    “You stop that!” Stiles was roaring down at the prone form on the bed now. The dark red candle had almost burnt all the way down. The skeletal woman of silver was swathed in dripping red wax like billowing robes. “Whatever games you’re playing, you stop it now. I know that’s not just an owl out there, I know it’s you. What are you trying to tell us? You bastard. He needs you. Doesn’t that mean jack shit to you? Derek needs you. He’s sitting in a cell, all alone. He loves you, you stupid pretty-boy piece of shit. Even if I were deaf I could have seen that he loves you. So you get up now. Get the fuck up!”  
    Rappa-tap-tap, rappa-tap-tap. Schlck, schlck. Just once more. Then it stopped, and the giant screech owl opened her massive wings - blotted out for a moment the sight of the low sickle moon, the moon that looked so much suddenly like the curved blade of that gleaming silver knife - and quit the sill.  
    Scott was almost in tears now.  He had wrenched his hands off the sides of the witch‘s face. “Stiles, he was trying to warn us. He’s in there somewhere, I can hear something stirring inside of him now. Like static. Fuck, it’s too late. Can’t you hear that?” And he did. He’d heard it earlier, too. That droning white noise. So that had been you, you bastard. What had Derek said last night? He‘d said it was like the witch‘s powers had a life of their own now. “It’s like before, with the stags,” said Scott. “He was trying to warn us. Fuck, fuck, fuck. It’s too late!” The dark red candle snuffed out and what little light left in the cramped bedroom was cold and lonely.  
    Outside, something howled. Right outside, right beneath the window. Right up at that low gleaming sickle moon. Stiles had never heard such an ugly sound in his life.  
    “Not again. Not again.” Scott was in a panic, the dark wiry hair climbing his face, his hands hardening, talons hardening, teeth drawing low and sharp. His voice deepened and deepened. “It came back for me. Oh, God, it came back for me. Not again.”  
    Stiles flew to the window, overturning the empty altar in his haste. He thew the window open, his fractured wrist screaming, and saw something enormous and dark flash across the East lawn of the Hale house and disappear under the veranda. In the distance, he could see the huge speckled owl wheeling in the night sky. He slammed the window shut.  
    Downstairs, there was the sound of breaking glass, of something crashing through a window and smashing bodily against a wall. The entire house shuddered. “Goddamn it,” Stiles said, banging his own head purposely against the sill of the window. Lost his stupid temper again, hadn‘t listened to Scott when he should have. Scott who had the power now to hear a butterfly beating its wings from across a stadium. “Stupid, stupid, stupid. I’m so fucking stupid. Goddamn it.” Hadn’t listened to the goddamn witch when he should have. The goddamn witch who had taken the form of the owl somehow to warn them even while still slumbering himself right next to them.  
    Something roared downstairs. The sound echoed through the cavernous foyer of the house, all the way up to the busted high vaulted ceilings and out through them into the night. More glass breaking, doors being battered down. Things being pulled off the walls and thrown and snapped in a sickening rage. What evil thing from Hell could make a sound like that, that wailing roar? Stiles thought suddenly of the knife. The luminescent silver knife on the table, still sitting where he had left it. The blade practically glowed in the darkness. But that thing... The shadow of that loping dark thing had been monstrous in proportion. No blade of silver was going to stop that thing, no matter how keen its edge. Scott certainly couldn’t stop that thing. He hadn’t even been a match for Derek Hale.  
    Stiles thought about his father. He thought about his father collecting pieces of him in plastic evidence bags. His father who would be all alone. He thought about the dark man alone in his cell, too, and for once he wasn’t surprised at the well of tender emotion that sprang from the pit of his stomach at the thought of Derek Hale. Derek Hale, who he’d only met just yesterday, who he’d hated passionately but only for awhile. Icicles and iron. It wasn’t fair. Well, maybe in another life. Stiles laughed at himself inwardly. Piteously. This is what it takes for me to stop lying to myself. Too little, too late. We’re going to die. We’re going to die and my dad’s going to... What is my dad going to do? What the hell is he going to do? Fuck, we’re going to die.  
    But Scott had risen anyway, and he wasn’t whimpering in fear anymore. Scott had shifted completely into - what had Derek called it? - his second skin, his eyes tawny and bright again. His talons were ready at his sides, grasping at the air. Waiting to meet skin and meat and bone. Only this time he wasn’t looking at Stiles in savage hunger with his fangs dripping. Stiles wasn’t afraid of him to look at him now. There was actually a modicum of sentience there, Stiles could see it somehow even as he shook and gasped every time another piece of furniture was hurled against the walls downstairs. There was a seething, quiet serenity in Scott’s lighthouse beacon eyes that had not been there the day before when he had tried with every ounce of his new strength to tear out his best friend’s throat. He was fully changed, but he was Scott still this time. And he was resolute, hard as a rock, though moments before he had been nearly weeping in terror. He even opened his thin dark lips and words came out in that murky new voice.  
    “Tell my mom I love her, Stiles. You run when I tell you to run.”  
    It had torn its way up the first flight of stairs. It was ripping apart the rooms on the second floor just beneath them. Stiles could hear its steel-hard claws raking the walls. It was throwing shelves and chairs up against the ceiling. Everything it touched turned to sticks and kindling.  
    “I’m not leaving you. That thing’s going to kill you, Scott.”  
    “YOU RUN WHEN I TELL YOU TO RUN!” Stiles flinched. Scott’s voice boomed, snarled, filled the tiny room and echoed out into the narrow corridor. He was calling that thing up here, challenging it. Well, to Hell with you, Scott McCall.  
    “You don’t get to ask me to do that.” Stiles picked up the silver knife, brandished it like a torch. Like fire in the coldest primordial night. The blade shimmered in the moonlight. “You’re my bro’, right? That’s what you said earlier. You’re my bro’. I’m not leaving you alone with that thing.”  
    “Stiles, there isn’t time to argue! Go when I tell you to go! One of us has to make it out of here. You have to tell my mom I love her. I can’t remember the last time I told her.”  
    It was coming up the winding stairs to the third floor. Bellowing, panting hard. They heard the muscular dark bulk of it crashing and lurching against the narrow circular stairwell.  
    Scott kicked open the bedroom door. Kicked it right down off its hinges. Stiles rushed to his side as the door slammed to the floor, soot swirling, and the hulking head of the great black wolf appeared over the wrought-iron banister of the stairwell. Eyes of fire! It climbed up over the landing and fell heavily on all fours at the end of the corridor, shaking the drool from its muzzle. Sniffing the air. Savoring the fear dripping off its prey. Stiles understood now just how much more of a fiend this thing was than the slim young wolf-man at his side that it had created with its savage bite. How much more animal it was, how much more primitive and brutish. And even Scott must have known then that neither of them was going to make it past this thing.  
    It saw them standing together in the doorway at the end of the East corridor, Stiles clutching the glittering silver knife, and Stiles could have sworn those vicious jaws curled up at the corners to laugh. The fangs were so much longer than Scott’s, the whole of its stinking wet body covered in a matted black coat. Its arms were longer, thicker. It was built like a great muscled ape with a swishing long tail, and it smelled like an abattoir. Stiles could have sworn he saw its huge round shoulders rising and falling with mirth as it choked out a cruel, mocking laugh at them, ridiculing how this little man made of toothpicks had dared to lift the knife against it.  
    Then to his utter revulsion the massive black werewolf rose onto its hind legs and began to advance slowly in a bipedal stance toward the two friends in the doorway. It strolled down the hallway almost daintily on two feet and trailed its claws on the walls on either side of it, flecks flying off the ruined drywall like confetti in its wake. It was teasing them, taunting them. Nowhere to run now, little men, little meat, little nothings. Should have listened to the owl. Should have listened to the sleeping witch.  
    Stiles tried to go to a quiet place, tried to imagine bare feet in a glade by the Danube River. Tried to imagine a man who loved him waiting by the water. The monster took one slow, steady step after another, snapped its ugly jaws, raked its claws forward and threw a cloud of sawdust into their faces.  
    Scott looked at Stiles, a slow, devoted look. It said only this; “Thank you for being my friend. I love you."  
    And then Scott roared beside his friend, really roared. He hurled his voice up into the monster’s face in unbridled defiance and it was a hell of a voice. Stiles didn’t know Scott was capable of that, didn’t know he had that kind of thunder inside of him. But goddamn, how he roared. It deafened the puny human boy at his elbow, shook the very walls of the house and caused frames and knick knacks to fall off the walls below them. And it gave his friend courage. Just enough courage to face what was going to happen next with open eyes.  
    Stiles raised the shining useless knife, saw his own reflection in the silver blade and saw how his eyes were set in an expression of pure, unfettered resolve. No going back now. He opened his mouth too, and his own tremendous rebel yell tore free from somewhere deep within where he had chained a monster of his own between his ribcage for sixteen years. Sixteen years. That’s all they’d gotten to have together, these friends. These brothers. Just sixteen years.  
    Fine. Let it be.  
    Stiles opened his mouth wide and roared too beside his brother, and it was nothing as reverberating and powerful as Scott’s feral battle cry, but he roared nonetheless and looked that evil creature dead in its burning red eyes.  
    And the great black werewolf stopped in its tracks, ten feet from the doorway.  
    There was a moment of stunning confusion. Utter silence before a storm that never happened.  
    And then two rough dark hands lighted on their shoulders from behind and parted the friends, and a lean tall young man with slick black hair and rings of burnished gold perforating his flesh stepped between them to face the monster in the corridor. There was that breeze again, and the scent of tiger lilies and prayer. Cayenne and paprika.  
    He turned his neck to the side, this way and that, cracked it, and stretched and cracked his fingers too. Then he yawned, his mouth opening wide and his pearly white eye teeth flashing sharp for just a moment before they retracted back toward his beet-red gums. When he spoke his voice dripped like warm honey, quick and sweet. “Get behind me, boys. Get behind me now.”  
    Stiles looked up at the beautiful young man in profile, mouth open. Aghast. Mortified. Scott scented him instinctively, pressed his face into his long graceful neck without thinking. The witch winked at Stiles and regarded Scott with a sly smile. His eyes between those long black lashes were the color of burnt caramel. “Well, aren’t you charming, Scott McCall? Now you boys get on behind me. And hold onto something. Hold on tight, hold onto each other if you have to. Ah’m only gonna be able to do this once. Probably won’t be able to do it again for a good long time.”  
    The great black werewolf took a single step back, trying to mask at all that it had by thrusting its muzzle forward in a snarl. But it couldn’t hide a thing from the witch. The witch knew. The witch saw its sudden reticence, veering on something that was almost naked fear.  
    “Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!” the young man with his freckled coffee skin crowed. Scott and Stiles obeyed him wordlessly when he laughed like that. It was a reckless, wild sound. They each took a step back, just as the werewolf had. Scott dug his claws into the frame of the door and Stiles clung tight to his friend’s sturdy trunk, neither knowing what was going to happen next yet both knowing it was going to be turbulent. They had both felt his power tonight, seen it with their own eyes and felt it on their own skin.  
    “But you know once will be enough, don’t you?” crooned the witch to the monster in his sweet, simmering nectar voice. He took a sashaying step forward, his hips swaying erotically to a smoky tune that only he could hear. The werewolf held its ground, but its claws tensed. Stiles could see it wanted so badly to pounce, to bite and rip and bleed. But something simply wouldn’t allow it to attack whether it was by its own will or that of the witch. “You black thing with your black heart, it doesn’t matter none to me that Ah can’t see inside your head even in this pelt. Ah could make you show me the man you are under there if Ah pleased. But it doesn’t please me to do that to you now. Ah simply don’t have the time or the tools for that particular ritual, and you better be glad of it. Ah have other things more worthy of mah time to attend to tonight then forcing you to show me your ugly face. But Ah’ll find you again, you vile thing, Ah swear to all the Loa and to Marinette Bra-Chéch. Ah’m more interested tonight in just plain hurting you than anything. Believe you me, you are gonna be hurting something fierce before this night is through. But after? Ooh, after, Ah’ll find you again and bind you down with mah hocus pocus and rip the wolf skin right off your shoulders. You put me in the Deep Sleep with all those naughty teeth, you bad boy, but Ah won’t go down like that again.”  
    Another snarl in retort. The werewolf tore a chunk out of the wall and lobbed it at the tall lean young man. Put its entire upper body into it. The planks and plaster broke on the witch’s face like straw against a redwood and littered the boys behind him with debris. It had hurt him just a bit, but he blinked it away. The werewolf howled, raked the floorboards with its two feet in turn like a bull, like it was going to charge. But it didn’t.  
    “You shook something loose in me, Ah must admit, you evil thing. Ah used to know what restraint meant. The people who taught me these arts Ah’m about to show you, they used to insist Ah exercise restraint in practicing these things. Made me meditate under frozen waterfalls and put mah fist against walls of ancient unbreakable stone for months and months while mah bones cracked and splintered and healed over and over just to show me what restraint should feel like. But Ah can’t remember what restraint feels like when Ah look at you, you bastard thing with your eyes of fire. You killed mah Knights, mah Brothers of The Hoof and Tine,” said the witch accusingly, pointing a finger at the offender of the crime he listed so eloquently. The words rolled off his tongue one after the other, almost as if he were chanting. Almost as if he were weaving a spell. “Mah Proud Ones. You killed them all. Ah felt you kill them all, mah Guardians of The Forest. Do you deny it? Do you want to shed your pelt and deny it and maybe earn yourself your day in court? Everyone’s innocent until proven guilty, Sugah. Do you care to deny it?”  
    The werewolf lunged. It dared to finally lunge, and Stiles felt himself scream, “No!” before he could stop himself. But the witch’s hand sprang up and actually grabbed the monster by the throat to hold those snapping jaws just short of himself. Only just short, though. The jaws opened and closed like the clamps of a steel trap less than an inch from that crooked nose that had obviously been broken more than once. The sound was like the cracking of a whip, over and over.  
    The young man’s strength was great, wolf-man himself that he was. The strength of him was plain and visible. But it was clear the great black werewolf was his physical superior. It was clear that the witch’s arm was going to fail soon. His long slender arm was quaking at the elbow with the exertion of holding the monster back. So he brought his boot up savagely and kicked the spitting demon hard between the legs, then spat himself in its face as it emitted a high tense whine and hurled it backward so that it slammed against the banister of the stairs and bent the wrought-iron back.  
    “Guess that’s your answer. Ah’m terribly sorry, did Ah wound your pride just then? Some Alpha that makes you. Can’t even stand up against li’l ol’ me. Can’t even stand up to a fey little Beta with those big ol’ balls Ah just made soup of. And me with these limp little wrists and these saucy little hips.” Alpha? Beta? What did those words mean? Stiles had heard them before, they had meaning. They had meaning specific to wolves.  
    Dempsey Bonaventure’s head snapped up, his right hand rising.  
    Some invisible force struck the werewolf where it lay against the busted banister as if a fist without meat and bones had slammed into the underside of its jaw, more sharp and forceful than any punch the lean young man could have thrown on his own. The werewolf’s head snapped up and back and Scott and Stiles could actually hear the impact of whatever had lashed against the monster’s drooling jaw like a hammer. They felt it against their own skin like the smooth cool breeze from earlier, except it was a rushing geyser pouring through the empty air all around them. And it had taken a lot out of the powerful young man. The witch reeled as much as the werewolf did at the impact, but the coffee-skinned young man was nowhere near finished. He collected himself almost immediately. He stood tall.  
    The werewolf roared, tried to collect itself as well, pounded on the floorboards and the walls and threw its fury against the structure of the house all around it. But the lean young man stood firm. He kept talking, kept on sneering in that honeyed voice.  
    “Now, you see that? You feel that? That wasn’t no hocus pocus, was it? No, you black-hearted thing, that wasn’t no magick at all. You’ll see some magick soon, but that there wasn’t no magick. Ah’d tell you where Ah learned it and how just to make you madder still - just which mountain Ah had to climb and just which frozen monastery Ah had to pray naked at the doors of for half a year solid before they allowed me to pass through their gate - but Ah think Ah’m done with you for tonight. Ah think Ah’ve just about had mah fill of the stink of you. Hold on back there, boys. Scott and Stiles. Ya’ll really are sweet boys. Hate to see you get hurt, so ya’ll hold on. Ya’ll hold onto each other tight. Ah know Ah said Ah could only do it once but that was just the opening number.”  
    The witch leaned back and raised his foot as if he was getting ready to make a high marching step, his thigh and knee at a perfect ninety-degree angle, and the werewolf bristled and prepared to lunge again. But it never got the chance.  
    “Now, this here? This here’s the main event. And you are gonna love the encore. Believe you me, you black thing with your black heart.  
    “Now you get the HELL out of mah house!”  
    Stiles heard himself cry out again when it happened but wasn’t really aware of any conscious decision to make the sound. He barely heard himself honestly, barely heard Scott’s high canine whine as the force of whatever it was that exploded out of the floor just then streaked out from the spot where Dempsey Bonaventure stomped down straight through the burnt lacquer and thick mahogany floorboards. Where the witch’s foot plowed right through the planks and the same indiscernible power he had used to strike the werewolf after throwing it back all but cracked the entire third floor of the ruined Hale manor in half.  
    Stiles had to hold tight to Scott to keep from being thrown away by the force of the blow, and even the young wolf-man was barely able to cling tightly enough to the doorframe with his long dark talons to keep the both of them sound in the wake of that... That massive power. That wave of unstoppable force. Stiles couldn’t even begin to process the inclination to wonder at what it might have been, that invisible power. But it was enough. It was more than enough. The blow had surged forward from where the witch slammed down his foot, so the boys behind him caught the least of it. But even the least of it had the force of a small hurricane. As he clung to Scott in the wake of that imperceptible shock-wave, Stiles saw the floorboards crackling upward in a wave that traveled in wild ripples from the spot where the witch had put his foot down toward the werewolf where it stood spitting and howling across the narrow corridor.  
    The least of it had the force of a small hurricane. The least of it nearly tore the rest of the roof off the house behind the witch, who lurched like a drunkard after the effort of the assault. The least of it was heaped upon the witch himself who rocked and staggered and actually turned to the side to vomit a little but never fell, and onto the boys he’d told to hold tight to each other behind him. To hold tight to weather the storm he’d been preparing to unleash on this monster from the moment his eyes snapped open in that dirty little bed as the boys made their rebel yells against their own impending deaths.  
    That had been the least of it. Imagine how the great black werewolf felt to catch the full force of it, hurtling through the night that had opened behind it as it was thrown straight through the house. As its suddenly powerless flesh splintered the skeleton of the house in the voiceless wake of the witch’s power, something that wasn’t really magick by his own definition.  
    What was it then, if not magick? Stiles ached to know as the final waves of it washed over them, making his buzzed hair stand on end like the prickles of a hedgehog. What secret frozen monastery had he prayed at to learn it? Stiles looked up and let go of Scott when he felt the shock-wave die down at last. How long had it taken? Less than a few seconds. Just a few seconds ago the witch had uttered those fatalistic words; “Now, you get the HELL out of mah house.” And then he had put his foot through the floor and the werewolf - what the witch had called the Alpha - had gone flying violently through the West wall of the house and rolled down the hill, smacking hard against stones and tree trunks all the way down. Probably broke more than a few dozen bones and ruptured more than a few vital organs. Not enough to kill it, though. The witch had been speaking like he knew the blow wouldn’t kill it. But he wasn’t done yet. The dark night sky was...  
    What the hell was that, gathering in the sky? Just above the trees? The sky was... Teeming. Swarming. What the hell was that sound? It was getting louder by the second but Stiles couldn’t place his finger on just what it was. The witch was wobbling and rocking this way and that as he made his way down the corridor he’d just destroyed, teetering around the upended floorboards. Laughing maniacally. Rattling off more threats and insults in that derisive French-Creole accent.  
    “Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! Black thing with your black heart! Ah’m just getting started. Ah told you, Ah ain’t got no aim tonight but to hurt you. And you don’t know what pain is yet. You think Ah’ll go down into the Deep Sleep this time? Ah told you, you shook something loose. Can’t no amount of teeth protect you now!”  
    Stiles shook Scott, who had shifted back into his bare human form because the sheer preternatural impetus of that wave of power had shocked him out of his second skin. Stiles didn’t know when the silver knife had flown out of his grasp or where it had fallen but it was gone. The desk with the book inside had been upended in the shock-wave, and the black leather-bound grimoire laid open by the cracked East wall of the bedroom. Stiles shielded his eyes and Scott’s from the evil book as its pages turned themselves in the swirling wind that seemed to match the witch’s rolling laughter, and then he saw with silent horror as he dragged Scott toward the West wall which had exploded outward with the witch’s power that Dempsey Bonaventure was holding the long curving silver knife in his own calloused hand. That he had pressed the tip of it, so sharp it might have been hewn from a demon’s fang, into his own palm, and that he was letting his own blood flow down onto the slope beyond the ruined Western wall of the house.  
    Scott woke then and clapped his hands to his ears, screaming. “Fuck! The birds! The birds! Goddamn it, fuck! Make it stop! Make him stop!”  
    So that’s what it was, that swarming dark cloud above the trees. They were gathering together in such great numbers that they canceled out the sky, that Stiles couldn’t see the sickle moon anymore. And as the witch poured his blood they came shrieking from every corner of the horizon. Shining black crows, chittering sparrows and chickadees and sweet humming larks. Only they weren’t humming sweetly at all, and neither were the whip-poor-wills or the mockingbirds. The mockingbirds were gathered low in the cloud, and they were distinguishable by their communal song which was a dirge tonight before there were so many others joining the cloud that soon one call was indistinguishable from the next. And then there were the birds of prey, who were fewer in number than the inky black mass of crows and the ravens who swung about the cloud in pairs around them. But the birds of prey were still a legion of themselves, the diving hawks and falcons who took this opportunity to cannon out of the clouds and snatch the smaller fat game birds out of the air - the snow-white doves and dumb, wheeling pigeons - and the owls with their great broad wings who kept abreast of the cloud, avoiding the other birds entirely and circling in solitary spirals, waiting for the witch to say the word. What word was it? One of them must have been the giant screech owl from before.  
    Here and there too were the solemnly beating feathers of eagles, actual eagles - fisher eagles that had come down the coast from Alaska and the enormous imposing American golden eagles that were huge and powerful enough to carry fawns away in their talons - birds most people would never see outside of a television screen in their lifetimes. But here they were, circling, screaming, waiting. There were a dozen or two bald eagles too who were visiting from the American Northwest, and while they waited on the witch they made meals of the screaming gulls from the coast who were a filthy white cloud unto themselves. There were gannets and ducks as well, and huge majestic white and black swans with wings that could have battered a man black and blue. Wings beating the sky. Thrumming. Waiting on some word from the witch. But what word was it? Even to Stiles’ meek human senses it was deafening. Scott was beginning to bleed from the ears, screaming; “Make him stop! OH, MY GOD, MAKE HIM STOP!” But the noise of them didn’t seem to phase the witch-wolf at all. Dempsey Bonaventure had thrown his hands to the sky, the silver knife clutched deftly in his right hand, and he was laughing still. Waiting. What words would he speak to make the cloud descend?  
    From the valley below, the werewolf - this thing called an Alpha - bellowed and howled in pain. It, too, was curling and writhing in agony at the beating of those millions of teeming wings. The great black werewolf too was deafened by the shriek of those millions of squawking bills, one song indistinguishable from the next. They no longer made bird song in those terrifying numbers. It was only a cacophony, a nightmare symphony. When Stiles looked out on the valley he could see the hulking black shadow of the werewolf racing through the trees toward the midnight horizon. And then the witch gave the words as Stiles left his friend screaming on the floor of the ruined third floor to pick up a heavy floorboard that had flown loose during the witch’s assault. The witch pointed down into the valley as Stiles stole closer and closer to him from behind, brandishing the thick mahogany plank like a Louisville Slugger; “Tear the hair off his pelt. But leave his skin. Leave him breathing, leave the eyes in his head. Leave the rest of him for me.”  
    What kind of fucked-up, Dark Age bullshit was that?  
    The cloud fell on the shadow creature as it hurtled away, rolling and howling and snapping and clawing at the sky to turn away the birds and their snatching bills, their pin-sharp claws. But nothing could have stopped that cloud once it descended. Nothing could have saved that monster from those endless ripping talons that were as curved and slashing as its own, the feathers falling in waterfalls in the valley around it. Nothing could have turned those birds away.  
    Nothing but a two-by-four to the head, anyway.  
    Stiles had never been much of an athlete, admittedly. As he’d said just earlier that day, he’d only ever picked up lacrosse because it was something he could share with his best friend. And as he listened to Scott screaming, coiled up so tightly on himself on the floor and the hair coming and going from his cheeks and his teeth and claws growing and shrinking in his now-speechless agony - as he listened to the sound of his best friend suffering so terribly at the raucous screaming of that diving cloud that was picking the hulking black werewolf to pieces as it screamed similarly in kind - he didn’t think about the fact that he was doing the monster any favors by swinging the mahogany board as hard as his tired arms would carry it through the air toward the back of the witch’s head. He didn’t think that the blow he was inflicting would even really be enough to stop this unimaginably powerful creature from hurting his friend, unthinkingly or no. He’d never been much of an athlete, and he had a fractured wrist. But he was going to be damned if he didn’t try.  
    The crack of fire-hardened wood on skull was satisfying. So damn satisfying.  
    “Well, isn't that something?” Stiles said, and he held the heavy floorboard on his shoulder for a second as he watched the witch hurtle headfirst out of the side of the house that he had decimated with his awesome power not fifteen minutes prior.  
    Stiles made a list in his head as he collected his best friend off the shattered floor and hurriedly descended the stairs of the house with Scott’s arm slung around his shoulder, the light on his phone indicating that the time was only now just passing eight-thirty PM - earlier than they'd rolled away from the property the night before - as the cloud of shrieking birds grew quieter and quieter by the second, dispersing like smoke in a breeze. In fact a huge swarm of them passed directly over the Hale house in their rush to dissipate from the unnatural horde they had formed at a dark magician’s urging. What did birds think about blood magick, he wondered? They couldn’t have been fond of it, the way they dropped a hail of dripping waste onto the house that Stiles had to duck into a covered room to avoid. He could no longer hear the great black werewolf wailing in the distance but that reeking thing with its eyes of fire seemed like yesterday’s news at this point. He almost pitied the ugly black thing. How much of its hide had it lost to the cloud of swooping birds in the few minutes the hideous attack had lasted? Forget about it. Stiles listed his priorities off in his head, checking them off mentally as he accomplished them one by one.  
    One: Pick up the tall lean young man with freckled coffee skin who he’d just viciously brained off of the valley floor before he could begin to heal. Who he’d somehow hit harder with his fractured wrist then the werewolf had struck him earlier with the chunk of drywall. Tie his hands and feet together with that thick rope belt and whatever else he could find. Take away the hempen satchel at his waist with his mother’s bones. Gag him so tightly he couldn’t so much as breathe unless it was through his crooked nose, which Stiles was dying to break for him again. He hoped the bastard would give him a reason. Put him in the trunk of the jeep. Not the backseat, hands and feet bound and mouth gagged or not. He was going in the trunk.  
    Two: Make sure Scott was OK. Talk his friend down from the mania that the shrieking cloud of birds had induced. Scott was gibbering and nearly insensible. He kept on mumbling, “Make him stop, make him stop, make him stop,” even after the cloud had already dispersed to the four winds. So Stiles played some Dionne Warwick for him in the car and sang softly to him and squeezed his arm - “I say a little prayer for you; forever, forever...” - making Scott look at him directly in the eye every few minutes. He did things like ask him his name and ask him little questions about his mother and about what Allison smelled like and how to properly attack a lacrosse goal. It helped more than anything to ask him questions about Allison.  
    Three: Kill Derek Hale with his bare hands. He wasn’t sure yet how he was going to tick that one off the list, but he was working on it. As he tore through the Beacon Hills Preserve and hit the road leading out of it, turning toward the nameless border between the commuter belt and the forest where the Sheriff’s station was located, Stiles thought long and hard about how he was going to kill Derek Hale with his bare hands right through the bars of that lonely little cell next to his father’s office.


	4. Less Than Forty-Eight Hours

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Meanwhile, in Derek Hale's corner...

DEREK Hale heard the Alpha howling in the distance from the safety of the chilly little cell.  
    He rose immediately to his feet and began to pace, a cold sweat breaking out over his pear-white skin.  
    They were talking about releasing him already out there beyond the locked door of the room outside the cell. Sheriff Stillinski had come back in for the night when he’d gotten the call from the coroner with the unconditional truth of the case; no human being had killed Laura Hale. Someone had mutilated her after she was killed, that was clear as day. But she had died from asphyxiation after her throat was torn clean out by an animal. And there was no indication at all that Derek Hale had any motive or ability to do to his sister’s body what had been done. Derek Hale had only just gotten back into town a few days prior. Derek Hale had checked into the Best Western on the edge of town on Tuesday morning after probably hearing on the grapevine that there had been a young woman found dead on his family’s property. And as far as the psychoanalysts and interrogators were concerned the young man really was telling the truth about all of that. They could charge him and fine him for burying the body himself like that but they couldn’t hold him anymore. That’d been fast. Faster than he’d been expecting. Sounded like it was just in damn time, too.  
    Derek himself hadn’t been sure why he’d been compelled to return to Beacon Hills so quickly until he found Dempsey covered in blood by the slow waters of the Akeela Creek. He’d indeed heard about the dead girl, been intrigued by it, but he’d had no idea it was his own sister until after he laid his old sweetheart down to rest in his old bedroom of the fire-blackened house and gone out to smell to his utter horror none other than Laura rotting on the wind. Laura, who he’d thought was already gone. Laura, chewed up and spit out and cut in half at the waist. Dempsey had returned because he had sensed Laura’s pain in dying, probably. What he would have called the lighter parts of her rising. Probably caught nothing more than one of his tiny feelings, one of his wild intuitions that used to be brought to him on mountain breezes and from the beaks of sparrows.  
    So why hadn’t he come back when the house burned down, less than a year after he left? What far corner of the world had he been inhabiting when the rest of the family died, what unknowable place had he been hiding in - honing his dark, dangerous gifts - that he hadn’t heard their screams, yet he came back for Laura? It must have just been a coincidence. He must have just been near enough. Derek was doing all he could not to fault Dempsey for not returning for so long after the family had burned, but it was so damn hard. He could bleed himself out to protect Scott McCall on a whim, just hearing the kid’s suffering on the wind as he prayed by the creek. But where had he been when Derek lost everything that Dempsey himself hadn’t torn away when he kissed him goodbye on that sad morning all those years ago? Him and his damnable dark magicks, he could have saved the entire family. He could have saved them all.  
    That wasn’t fair. Derek tried not to let those thoughts invade him, tried not to let them break him down. He tried to remember Dempsey as he had known him, sweet and kind and tender. But it had been clear when Derek heard his psychic emission radiating out all over the preserve the other night that the witch was changed in ways he couldn’t begin to understand. He’d always had that edge, that magnificent dark side that had honestly been one of the reasons Derek had loved him so much. But he was changed beyond that now. His magicks had grown darker still. He had used so much blood that night, so much it nearly destroyed him. He’d done it without a thought. And since his magicks were a part of him as surely as his eyes and arms and legs then Derek was tearfully afraid that Dempsey was less Dempsey now and just... Some dark unknown creature that he had used to know. Something that was altogether no longer Dempsey.  
    Derek knew without a doubt that, knowingly or not, the witch had called him home. Derek had been out in Nevada, camping in the desert. Eating fennecs and lizards. And then something had compelled him just to pick up his wastrel life and go home. Home, where there was nothing left for him because his family was dead and his young love had walked away from him. Yes, he was positive that nothing but the witch could have brought him back. Damn him. Derek was glad for it, glad to at least be able to give his sister a third and proper burial once all this madness was over with. But damn the witch. He loved him still, somewhere deep inside, but damn his eyes and damn his power. He hated that every thought and movement he made from this point forward might be a machination on the witch’s part. He hated that he didn’t trust his young love at all anymore and he hated even more than that the difficulty of putting up these pretenses for these human beings just outside that door who were shaking their heads and chewing their lips in hesitation at letting him go. He hated that he couldn’t just bend the bars and tell them all to go to Hell and walk out of here. He wasn’t listening to the human beings anymore. He paced and wrung his hands.  
    That son of a bitch out there stalking his family’s property, that Alpha out there who had snatched Scott McCall in the night - that was who had taken Laura’s life. No doubt in his mind. And the thing had done it for power, there could have been no other reason for it. Laura had been an Alpha herself, swift and fierce and so powerful no man or beast could ever have matched her to take the spark from her. So the bastard had taken her by surprise somehow. Somehow. He couldn’t think on how, couldn’t make the pieces fit. But it had taken her by surprise and then someone had taken custody of the body after - a lucky find for this bloodthirsty someone - and mutilated her in an effort to draw home the only living son of the Hale clan.  
    Well, here he was. And he knew just who this bloodthirsty someone was, and once he was done dealing with the son of a bitch who had killed his sister for the spark in her breast he was going to make them pay. He would do it stealthily, quietly. He would do it without joy. He wouldn’t murder women and children the way they had when this same bloodthirsty someone had burned his family’s house down around them. He wouldn’t mock and torture the way they had, he wouldn’t be cruel about it. He wouldn’t rip his way through innocent people to get to them. But he was going to make them pay somehow.  
    That was the thing, though. If those boys, the kid wolf and the Shrimp - the Shrimp with his quick tongue and even quicker temper - had succeeded in bringing Dempsey out of that coma through some miracle then the moment the witch’s eyes opened he would know. He would see the ruined house, and he would walk all through it and lay hands on everything and see and hear with his deep dark powers everything that had passed. Through his deep dark powers he would be able to hear the children screaming as they died, Derek’s mother telling them to close their eyes. Not to look as the fire swept toward them. Beautiful Talia, telling the children it would be OK, that it would be over soon. With his bottomless empathic capabilities he would feel their agony and their fear as the fire ate their flesh as if it were his own pain, as if they were his own deaths. He would die with them again and again. Then the witch would go out to the lawn and see the hole where Derek had tried to lay Laura’s body to rest, and he would lean down to sniff the soil and pinch a little of it between his fingers into his open mouth, and he would know exactly the reason he had been called home to Beacon Hills and why he had silently called his old love home as well.  
    Then? Then he was going to come to Derek and he was going to pry the secrets out of him, willingly or not. He was going to find out who they were, this bloodthirsty someone born of a clan of similarly bloodthirsty savages who had made their family die screaming and butchered Laura and left her out in the wilds like they were baiting a cage for a crocodile. If Derek didn’t tell him then he would divine it by throwing his mother’s bones and calling for Evangeline in the night. Sweet and tender as he had always been, Dempsey had also been quick to action. And his temper was legendary.  
    Then, once he knew? Once the witch knew? Derek wasn’t sure that he or anyone or anything living or dead was going to be able to stop Dempsey Bonaventure from slaughtering that entire family in horrible, arcane ways. He was playing a dangerous game, trying to bring the witch out of his sleep. He was inviting warfare. And something in the witch’s voice on the wind and in the trees that night when Derek had found him by the creek told him that his tender beautiful Dempsey knew a thing or two about warfare now. He could plead and beg the witch to show mercy where this old family had never shown mercy to their kind, but his pleading and begging had never been enough even to keep his old love by his side. What good would pleading and begging do to convince him to spare a single one of those murdering pigs? Why should Derek even care that the witch was going to make them all die screaming the way their family had, that he was going to make them watch each other die one by one? Why not just let him loose on them like taking the lead off a Doberman?  
    He heard Talia Hale’s low, patient voice in his head; “Because our people are supposed to be better than those animals, my love. My gorgeous boy.”  
    Yes. Because they were supposed to be better than those reapers, those murderers, those killers of children. Because his mother had taught him to be better than that. It was just that simple for Derek Hale. His mother had taught him to be better, to be kind where he could be. But it was also because he was so tired of death. For the last six years death had covered him like his own second skin. Death had been the flesh he ate and the water he drank. It had followed him like his own shadow, waiting. Waiting for him after he denied it one more companion when he couldn’t pull the trigger of the gun that night after the fire and end his own life. He’d had enough of death. He’d chosen life that night, lonely and vacuous though it was. He had chosen life. And he had no taste for fighting wars. He had no taste for watching more of his people die, certainly not for dragging the young Scott McCall into a conflict that could only end in blood demanding blood.  
    He was going to have to tell Scott about the girl, sooner or later. Sooner would be better.  
    He supposed there was little he could do now but wait and see what happened next. He knew they were coming into Beacon Hills, this old family that had decimated his people for generations past. He knew they were slowly returning branch by branch and that they were plotting something. Laura’s body was evidence of that. It couldn’t just be the one, it couldn’t just be that psychotic blond bitch with her guns and poisons who would be following her next of kin into town sooner than later. It couldn’t just be her brother with his whistling crossbow and his menacing stare or his wife The Swordmistress, The Butcheress. These human beings, this family of werewolf hunters and all their ilk, were going to be gathering soon for something much more perilous even than the murder of an innocent family.  
    Yes, he had to tell Scott about the girl, that girl with her wan skin and dark hair. He was going to tell him about her the first second he could. The father was one thing, the father would just put a bolt in his eye and throw him in a ditch somewhere. But if The Butcheress found him out then she was going to flay him for her collection. That evil, sadistic woman.  
    Derek wondered as he paced and listened to the howling in the night - something the human beings in this building would never have caught with their feeble senses - how the hell was he going to stop the bloodshed before it began? He wanted - needed, felt it tugging at his soul - to avenge his family in kind, he wanted to make that psychotic blond bitch pay. She needed to pay in pints and buckets. But how was he going to do that and walk away from this entire thing without a war erupting in his wake? They were planning a war of their own already, he knew it. How was he going to navigate this minefield?  
    He sighed sadly, exhausted. Maybe he should just let the witch off the lead. Maybe there was no other way to prevent any more bloodshed then to just let the witch wash these people off the face of the planet in a sea of flames. Maybe then there could be some fragment of peace, after the bodies were finished burning. God, more bodies burning. The thought sickened him. Derek looked up at the empty ceiling, then put his face in his hands, leaning against the bars. He was so tired. “Mom,” he said, tears threatening. He let himself sob just once. He hadn‘t cried in years. “What do I do now? I don’t know what to do, Mom. God, I miss you so much. Please, just tell me what to do.”  
    The howling answered him, rancorous and long. The monster had found itself some fresh prey. Derek couldn’t bear to think about the implications of that. He had sent those kids out there alone.  
    Stop calling them kids, he scolded himself. You and Dempsey weren’t kids when you were sixteen and in love. You had the wolf skins then and Scott’s got the wolf skin now, and his best friend the Shrimp is in on it now too. So they were no longer kids. He had to stop calling them kids, they had agreed to help him even after he was so brash and rude. He was too young himself to be calling them kids. Yet he felt so old. So damn tired. He wished he could do what the witch did, call his mother down by dark magick and ask her what to do. Maybe that was why he felt so old. He shouldn’t have lost his mother for years and years. He felt so old and so tired because he was really truly alone in the world. Because he had become such a thoughtless bastard in the last six years that he had sent two sixteen-year-old boys to fight his battle for him tonight.  
    The witch hadn’t awakened. He was sure if Dempsey had awakened then he would have felt it somehow. He hadn’t been expecting him to wake, but he had hoped. What had he done? What bloody fate had he sent those boys to?  
    Sheriff Stillinski opened the door to the little room with the cell inside next to the desk where the deputy usually sat during the day. The keys were jangling in his hands.  
    Yes, you fool man, thought Derek. You let me the hell out of here so I can go help your son. So I can go make sure I haven’t killed your son in my sheer pigheadedness and stupidity. He looked up at Noah Stillinski’s tired face and felt a flood of guilt toward his jailer. The Alpha wouldn’t kill Scott. The Alpha wanted a soldier. But Stiles Stillinski was less than collateral damage to that creature. Please, Mom, watch over that boy. I couldn’t bear it if he died and it was my fault. Just watch over him a little while longer. I’m almost there, I’m almost free. And I did it the way you’d have wanted. I did it by their rules. Please, Mom. Keep him safe.  
    “Let me just start by saying I’m sorry for your loss, son,” said the Sheriff. Derek kept his reticent silence. Stared. Stop jabbering, man. Just let me go. “Thats, uh... That’s a lot for one person to go through after losing your family like that. We are gonna have to fine you for - ”  
    “Fine,” Derek said, cutting him off. Yes, burying body. Bad. Contaminants. Water pipes. Gotcha. Rude. Didn’t care. Would make up for it later. “Fine, I’ll pay it. Money’s no object. I’ll mail your office a blank check the second I get my checkbook out of my car. No, I’ll come back and drop it off myself. Just open the door. Please,” he added out of sheer compunction.  
    “Look, son,” answered Noah, unphased, and he fished in his breast pocket for a little rectangular business card that he handed to Derek through the bars. Derek knotted his brow, looked down at the little card between his fingers. Pryanka Parashar, MD. Below the name was an address in Beacon Hills and a phone number. “My boy’s therapist,” explained Noah as he put the key into the door of the cell. Derek was taken aback. He was genuinely speechless and he was sure the Sheriff could see it in his face. “I honestly don’t know if she’s any good. He doesn’t talk about what goes on during their sessions. But he’s been going to her for awhile. Five years now, since his mom died. Just the, uh... Just the year after the fire. And my son might be a bit of a handful sometimes but I think having someone to talk to helps, at least a little. Again,” Noah said, putting his hand gingerly on Derek’s back as he stepped out of the cell. Derek hated that, people touching him without permission. Absolutely loathed it. But the man was being kind. “I don’t really know myself, son. And I don’t want to pry or be presumptuous. But maybe you should consider using some of your mom’s money to buy a new place here in town instead of living on the run like a criminal. We ran your credit card and saw how you’ve been living. It’s not good for a soul to always be running like that, son. Your mom was good people. Good friend to my wife.” Derek looked up at him, surprised. Had she really been? Well, of course she had been.  
    “Yeah,” said Noah. “I mean it about the house. I know a real estate guy if you’re interested. He’s a friend, he’ll get you a good deal. Your family were all good people, son. Didn’t deserve any of that one bit. A lot of us miss Talia. My wife was devastated.”  
    So the Shrimp had lost his mother, too. A year after the fire. Derek let that sink in for a moment. Just a year. How young must he have been then? Eleven? Derek had been nineteen, older than the boy was now. He couldn’t imagine losing his mother at eleven. He would have... That would have broken him. That would have finished him, he would never have chosen life if that had been him.  
    Derek pondered the quick-tongued boy who had reached emphatically out to touch his hand the night before and recoiled like he’d bitten him, like his skin had burned. Eleven years old. Poor little Shrimp. He was tougher than he looked. And Derek hadn’t exactly minded when he’d tried to touch him without permission. Tougher than he pretended to be, but it didn’t take much for all that toughness to come tumbling out, did it? All he’d had to do was hurt his friend, just a little. Derek had been compelled to say those words to him - “I don’t have anybody.” - before he caught himself. Not to the boy wolf in the backseat, but to the Shrimp. And now he knew why. Now he understood the wave of empathy and pheromones that had washed off the boy when he was talking about Laura. The soft salty smell of sadness and milk-sweet kindness.  
    Laura...  
    “When can I claim my sister’s body again?” Derek asked as the deputy entered the room and handed him his jacket, belt, and shoes which he put back on. He collected his wallet and phone from the man too and slipped them into his back pockets.  
    “Less than a week. You have my word,” said Noah. “We’ll contact you. We’re just gonna... We wanna get to the bottom of this. We’re gonna get to the bottom of this. We’re gonna find out what and who did that to her.” Then as Derek shook the man’s hand off his back to leave the Sheriff caught him by the shoulder. God that really was infuriating. He almost lashed out. Caught himself. Promise I’ll watch my temper, Mom. “Look, son. Even if you don’t contact that woman? You ever need somebody to talk to, you ever want to just get it all out, you call my office and we can set something up.”  
    Derek turned his head to look at him, dumbfounded. This guy just kept dropping bombshells. Derek heard another howl, tried not to turn his face up at it. Pretended not to notice. Had to be quick about this.  
    “You do social calls for all the people you arrest or am I a special case?” he asked, trying not to sound obnoxious about it. The Sheriff was dead serious.  
    “Kind of an exceptional situation, son. Plus a guy can’t help but feel bad for holding a gun to a guy ‘s head after something like this happens. Hell maybe you, me, and my kid can go bowling or something some night. He’s pretty short on friends but he’s not a bad kid.” No. No, he definitely wasn’t. Derek felt like a bit of a shit for the way he‘d treated the little guy, the little Shrimp. “Might give you some small incentive to stick around for awhile, having folks here who know you.”  
    Derek turned away, prepared to leave, then turned back before he could stop himself. “Yeah. Yeah, I guess it might. I uh... I... Thanks, Sheriff.”  
    “Take care of yourself, son.”  
    Derek couldn’t remember the last time somebody had shown him a kindness like that. Well, no. He could. The guy’s son, just the night before. Just the smallest kindness, in shallow tones and glances. Well, after he’d decked him, but it wasn’t like it had hurt.  
    He was tearing toward the preserve in wolf skin just as soon as he was out of sight of the station. Ruined a perfectly good pair of running shoes without thinking about it. After he’d already hurled himself over the edge of the road and into the treeline he heard behind him the Sheriff coming right back outside, mumbling that he should have offered him a ride. Then there was the inevitable silence of Noah Stillinski looking out at an empty parking lot, then whistling and muttering, “Jesus. Kid must have legs like Flo-Jo.”  
    Derek leapt the Blue Heron River and listened carefully as his pads tore at the earth. There was the howling again, except now there were other sounds. Miles off. He was maybe twelve miles from the house, but he could hear the noises faintly the same way he’d heard the howling. Crashing, glass tinkling, wood snapping. Snarling, roaring. He nearly stopped running, nearly spit in rage and indignation when he realized what was going on.  
    That son of a cock-choking whore is in my house, he thought and his own snarl formed at the back of his throat. He is wrecking what’s left of my damn house. My mother’s house. Oh, I am going to kill him dirty for this. Then there was the sound of the boys screaming, he could hear that. Scott snarling in wolf skin - roaring like a lion, Derek was a little proud at that - Stiles screaming his head off too. But... It wasn’t a death rattle. He didn’t sound like he was being torn to shreds just yet. Sounded like they were rallying, putting up a fight. Good for you, Shrimp - had they stayed there that entire time just trying to wake up the sleeping witch? Just hold on. Twenty minutes. I can make it in twenty minutes, maybe fifteen if I really push it. Just hold on. The foliage snapped at his ankles and he swung on saplings and low branches to somersault over the little creeks and streams bubbling in his path.  
    Derek was vaulting over the Akeela Creek and just beginning to follow it North the same way he had carried Dempsey home two nights before when he realized the roaring and screaming had stopped entirely. There was no more noise from the house at all, not even the bellowing of the Alpha. His blood ran cold and he pushed himself to sprint faster and faster through the dense undergrowth, vines and branches whipping his face. Please be OK, please be OK. He would have heard Scott raging and tumbling with the Alpha if the Shrimp was dead, he had to keep telling himself that. Please be OK. Stupid little Shrimp, please be OK.  
    Then he heard it, just barely. Laughter, dripping like honey and bourbon.  
    “Oh, shit. Ooh, no,” Derek cursed, pelting through the wood as fast as he could. Faster than he’d known he was capable of.  
    The Alpha was throwing a fit again and there was a long string of low, melodic words being spoken in a thick Southern accent. Rhythmic, as if in time to the beating of a drum. Crashing, more roaring, more honeyed words. Then...  
    “Get the HELL out of mah house!”  
    “Oh, fuck. Oh, fuck. Oh, fuck. Hurry, hurry, hurry. Don’t you hurt those boys, Demps. Please, please, please.”  
    Something exploded.  
    The shock-wave was immense. It knocked the wind out of the young wolf-man mid-sprint from five miles away. He had to dig in his claws and brace to keep from tumbling backward.  
    Was that his house!? His fucking house!? Had Dempsey just blown up the house they’d grown up in!? That hoodoo piece of... What the hell was that!? He’d never been able to do anything like that, that wasn’t any voodoo! Holy mother of God, thought Derek, did I really just hear that? Sounded like a bomb going off. It had actually deafened him for a moment. His ears were ringing. Had he really just felt what he’d felt? Like a fist, like a hundred fists, like a wave of sheer solid force all over his body, doubling him over. Shaking the trees, knocking birds’ nests and squirrels and raccoons to the leaf litter below, the animals utterly stunned. Not lifeless but motionless. Some of them twitching, spasming.  
    But there was no heat in the aftershock of it. That gave him hope, and he couldn’t smell smoke. Please be OK, Shrimp. Please. I’ll never forgive myself. Should never have sent you to him, knew he was dangerous. Never thought it would be this bad, though. Didn’t even think he would wake up, not really. Hoped but couldn’t have dreamed... Never mind. Getting close. Four miles, three miles. Almost there. Couldn’t hear the boys at all, just Dempsey and that wicked slurring laugh calling out over the house on the hill. Sleeping Beauty was awake, and he sounded pissed right the hell off. The Alpha was no longer in the house, was far down the hill. Ululating in pain. Please be OK, Shrimp. Don’t know what I’m going to tell your dad. Mom, are you up there? Can you please just keep him safe for another five minutes? I’m almost there, Mom, I’m almost there. Please keep him safe, it’d mean the world to me. Please just keep him safe.  
    Wait... What was that sound? Chattering. Chirping. Cooing. Squawking. Shrieking. Louder every second. The beating of wings? Yes, wings. So many wings.  
    It wasn’t coming from the house. It was... It was everywhere.  
    Derek stopped running. Stopped dead in his tracks. It was getting so loud, so many wings thundering against the sky. So many avian voices raised in a simultaneous war cry. Drowning out the wind, the traffic from off the freeway, police sirens from across town, everything. He looked up through the trees and understood immediately what was happening. “Oh, God... Oh, God... Oh, Demps, what have you done?”  
    Derek had to press his pads against his ears as they surged over his head toward the valley below the house, as they shot like a river of arrows through the air above him. Toward the valley where the Alpha had likely been blown out of the manor by whatever psychotic magick that had been that Derek was sure had just destroyed what remained of his mother’s house.  
    Birds. So many birds. Probably every single bird for miles and miles and miles. Probably every bird this side of the state and beyond. Damn his eyes, damn him and his black magick! He’d been weaving a spell even as he hurled slander at the Alpha, chanting beneath his words. Damn him, damn him! Damn you, Demps, if you’ve hurt that stupid little Shrimp I’m going to have to kill you too. It was becoming ear-splitting. Derek could hear the Alpha howling in pain, and when he broke the trees and was able to see into the valley less than a mile below his breath caught in his throat and he actually fell to his knees.  
    The entire West wall of his mother’s house had crumbled. There were pieces of it everywhere, blown in a huge circle maybe three hundred meters in every direction. He could see straight into the house from here, see Dempsey standing on the precipice of the broken wall on the third floor bleeding himself again, something bright - probably that horrible cursed silver knife - glinting in his hand and laughing like a damn fool. He could smell the blood from here, swimming with wild magick. Damn fool. Should have just left you to die out there, you damn fool.  
    But Derek saw behind him Stiles struggling to pull Scott out of the debris, the Alpha yowling in the valley below the hill. The Shrimp was OK. He was actually still struggling where the wolf boy had fallen unconscious in the shock-wave. Derek breathed a heavy sigh, looked straight up and closed his eyes for just a moment and whispered; “Thank you, Mom. I love you, I love you so much. Thank you.” The little Shrimp was so much tougher than he looked. The sound of the birds was plainly disturbing him but it didn’t do him physical harm like it did the three cringing werewolves. Hold on, thought Derek, as if his words might be able to fly the distance between where he stooped and where the short skinny boy was crawling in the wreckage beside his friend. Just hold on. I’m coming. I’m going to stop him.  
    But the cloud. The cloud was the most horrific thing he’d ever witnessed in his twenty-five years. It was sickening. The smell of them all gathered together, spinning in the sky, was noxious and overpowering. And the sound... The sound just kept getting louder and louder, as if the witch himself was urging the birds to cry their mightiest to cause the creature pain below in the valley. That was exactly what he was doing, wasn’t it? They circled and circled, dropping feathers in torrents and smattering the landscape with their foul watery feces. Their collective cries together were making Derek dizzy, lancing his brain, hurting him just like it was hurting the Alpha and poor Scott who had just awakened screaming. Not Dempsey, though. No, he was standing pretty, protecting himself with his own dark magick. Thinking only of his vengeance, thinking only of enacting his blind fury on that broken thing below him.  
    The pain was too much. Derek couldn’t even get to his feet again. His head was splitting, going to burst. He’d never felt pain like this. What was this magick? The young witch had always been able to commune with nature, to communicate with every shimmering fish and mewling kitten. But this? This was an obscenity. This went against nature. He had gone too far down the rabbit hole, let the blood magicks steal his soul. How had he struggled so just to hold fifteen bucks in a circle yet now that he’d recovered he could pull together this... This desecration? What was this wretch standing on the precipice of the house where they had grown up together? This wasn’t the boy Derek Hale had loved, throwing back his long slick hair and laughing right up into the eye of that circling storm of birds.  
    Or had this always been what he was, this corrupt thing? This depraved thing, thought Derek. Maybe I loved him so much I just couldn’t see it, even when he would disturb the resting spirits to make them dance in the moonlight. Maybe this was what he had always been.  
    Derek thought he had begun to weep. He thought he was crying like a baby there on the slope overlooking the broken manor on the hill, the tears flowing hot down his cheeks, because he was realizing with a broken heart that this was what his sweet tender Dempsey had left him for. What he had walked away from their family for. Dempsey who could have saved them all. He had chosen power instead. Deep, dark, loathsome power. Not to save and not to heal. This was a sin. Derek didn’t believe in God, and any time he said “Oh, my God,” or anything like that it was simply because he was trying to evoke some emotion or the other. But whether or not there was a God? This here? This screaming cloud in the sky, this whirlwind of feathers and beaks and claws and stark white shit raining on the wood where they had played as children? This was a sin. This was a sin against humanity, a sin against nature, a sin against everything decent in existence. Derek realized as the sound brought him low, his steaming teardrops falling from his face onto the stark gray earth, that they weren’t tears at all. It was blood, a thin trickle of bright red blood seeping out from under both his eyes.  
    He raised his head and screamed as loudly as he could over the din, the evil uproar; “STOP THIS! STOP THIS NOW! YOU FUCKING MONSTER, YOU STOP THIS NOW! IS THIS WHAT YOUR MOTHER WOULD WANT!? EVANGELINE WOULD BE ASHAMED OF YOU! TALIA WOULD BE ASHAMED OF YOU!”  
    But the witch was too far gone. He couldn’t hear a thing. But maybe that was a good thing, for as he watched the awful scene below Derek could see Stiles Stillinski wrenching a thick heavy board from the mess of the house. Could see him advancing slowly on the witch from behind, brandishing it like a weapon even with the wrist that he had hurt on Derek’s own face last night. Yes, do it. So much tougher than you look, little Shrimp. Do it. Put him down, make him stop. Make him stop before he kills us all.  
    The witch was chanting again, muttering under his breath again. And then as the Alpha stumbled to its feet and began to lope on all its broken limbs across the valley into the trees, Dempsey pointed a single finger, and the cloud whirled down on the fleeing dark figure in a seething funnel. Louder than ever. Derek was screaming again, but this time it was unintelligible. He hadn’t even realized that he’d shed his second skin until he wrenched his hands down into the slope as if he were trying to dig his own grave in the thick packed earth just to get away from the noise of the birds and saw that his claws were only short blunt nails, pink and useless. Mom, he thought. Mom, please help me. I think I’m coming your way. I think I’m dying, Mom. I think I’m dying.  
    Then... Relief. Silence. Crystal pure silence.  
    Had his eardrums burst? There was blood streaming out of his ears, maybe they had burst. Fine, that was just fine. They would heal. If he had thought of it before he would have jammed his own talons into his ears and slashed holes in them himself. But that wasn’t it. He hadn’t gone deaf, only his hearing was so damaged that it was difficult to hear anything less than the cacophony. And the cacophony had grown lesser. Much lesser. When he looked up the cloud was scattering, dissolving apart like a swarm of ants as some cruel child pours water down the stack of their nest. Now Derek really was crying. He was crying real tears, wracked with sobs, washing away the blood from the sockets of his eyes. Stiles was dropping the floorboard, breathing hard. The witch had fallen from the side of the house, had rolled a little down the hill and been caught on the roots of an arroyo willow. He was breathing, but raggedly. Out of only one lung. Probably punctured the other one when he fell. Good for you, Shrimp.  
    Derek was fighting unconsciousness as he watched the Shrimp descend from the house and put his friend in the car. His friend who was babbling and broken. Oh, Scott. I’m so sorry. I never thought it could be this bad. I never knew he had such a demon inside of him.  
    His head still aching, still ringing and swimming so terribly that he couldn’t rise off his hands and knees just yet, Derek crawled over the slope. Watched the Shrimp descend the few dozen feet down the hill and watched him undo Dempsey’s belt. Watched him snatch free the bag with his mother’s bones and tie it to his own belt quickly with the little copper cord, then loop the thick ship rope around the witch’s hands. He lashed them together behind his back. The witch was barely conscious, muttering something, protesting when Stiles took the satchel with Evangeline’s bones. But Stiles kicked him hard in the stomach, knocking the protest out of him - “Shut up, you fucker. Just shut up.” - then took off his own torn t-shirt and stuffed it into the witch’s mouth, wound it around and around his face and tied it tight behind his head. Good, thought Derek. He had good instincts. Keep his evil mouth shut and he won’t be able to mumble any of his hocus pocus. So much tougher than you look, little Shrimp. Then Stiles Stillinski with his milky soft skin beneath that t-shirt - wow, it really was so soft, so supple - undid his own shoelaces and tied them together at the ends before winding them over and over around the witch’s ankles and pulling them backwards to string the laces through the ship rope that bound his hands together. Pulling his hands and ankles together so that his back curled in a forced arch. Making sure the lean tall witch couldn’t so much as wiggle a limb, making sure he was completely at his mercy before he began to drag him up the slope toward the waiting jeep. Not caring one bit that the witch’s face was dragging against the rough earth, rocks and roots ripping his smooth dark skin. The boy was mumbling to himself, “That fucker. That fucker.” Derek could barely hear him, barely make him out. His ears were healing, but slowly. Stiles lifted the witch with a great deal of exertion over the open trunk of the car and dropped him in unceremoniously; “You just stay put right there and keep your damn mouth shut, you goddamn frigging psycho. I’ll figure out what to do with you when I’m done with that fucker.”  
    There was anger pouring off the boy in waterfalls. The scent of blind, torturous anger. Derek was almost fond of that specific scent of anger, it was almost familiar now.  
    Derek was able to stumble to his feet just as the headlights of the jeep cut on and the engine sputtered to life. But just as he began to take a wobbly step, his hand searching, voice rasping - “Hey, Shrimp... Hey, little Shrimp...” - his head spun and his legs failed him again and he went careening down the slope toward the house. It hurt. Hurt more than it should have. He was beginning to heal just a bit faster but it still hurt. When he rose with a groan out of the puddled ditch at the bottom of the slope, slime cascading off his shoulders, he saw the jeep speeding away and throwing a cape of dead leaves behind it. Stink of burning petrol, sound of the engine redlining. Damn it. What the hell was the Shrimp doing, where was he going with the witch all tied up in the trunk? What was he thinking? He was driving too fast, erratically, swerving and barely skimming the trunks of trees in his path.  
    Derek shook his head, tried to shake loose the nausea and sickness. Then he shook the mud and filth from his jacket, ran a hand through his hair and breathed deep of the cool air. He needed a hot shower and a cigarette like he couldn’t believe. He hadn’t had a cigarette for two days. Wanted to kill something just thinking about it. He convulsed a little and his second skin erupted out of him, and he instantly felt a little better. A little more powerful, a little more himself. Damn shoes were shredded, though. Damn it. He hated shopping. He took one look up at his house, utterly destroyed - his mother’s house - and sighed in exasperation.  
    He tore after the jeep that had already rambled out of sight, already hit the road outside the preserve. Heading South, heading toward the Sheriff’s station probably. What was the Shrimp trying to accomplish here? Derek cut through the trees, backtracking, listening for the sound of the jeep’s weak little engine so he could determine just where to break the trees to cut him off on the road. There was nobody else on the rural roads at this hour though the night was still young. Nobody out here even at this early hour in little Beacon Hills. Good. He didn’t have to worry about a bunch of rogue witnesses when he burst out onto the road in wolf skin. Whatever the Shrimp was doing, he wasn’t thinking straight. His brush with the witch had left a cloud of poison in his lungs. Whatever he was thinking, whatever he was going to do, Derek had to catch that damn jeep. And the Shrimp wasn’t making it easy for him, even in wolf skin. He was really gunning it, had to have been going nearly sixty on that narrow little country road. Derek had to push himself just to keep up. Just to keep sight of the headlights. The boy was tearing through stop signs like he couldn’t even see them, but of course he could and just didn’t give a damn.  
    There was a red traffic light. Derek had never felt more grateful in his life to hear the sound of brakes screeching. He ripped ahead through the trees, made it a solid hundred yards in front of the traffic light and hurdled out over the metal retaining wall onto the road just as the light turned green again. Sound of the engine gunning again. Derek pulled his second skin down, waved his hands, called the Shrimp’s name. He was gasping for air, trying to hear what was going on in the front seat of that car as he beckoned the boy to stop. The headlights were blinding. The boys’ voices were faint.  
    “You have got to be fucking kidding me.”  
    “Stiles... Stiles, is that Derek?”  
    “Yes, Scott. Yes, it is. Isn’t that funny?”  
    “Stiles... Stiles, slow down. I think that’s Derek.”  
    “I see him, Scott.”  
    “Stiles, slow down!”  
    “Bite me.”  
    Derek realized half a second too late that the jeep was speeding up in the last twenty yards from where he stood waving in the road. He recognized too late the rock-hard tone in the Shrimp’s low voice, realized too late the decision the boy had just made. He remembered much too late how the Shrimp had been mumbling darkly as he dragged the body of the witch up toward the car; “That fucker, that fucker... I’ll figure out what to do with you when I’m done with that fucker.”  
    “Oh, you little shi-”  
    Holy fuck, it hurt like a bitch. Derek had never been hit with a car before. He tried to move, tried to duck out of the road, but it was too late. Two great spots of light bore him down. The bumper cracked his legs out from under him, broke his shin on his right side, broke his hip, broke one of his ribs. He felt the bones split and heard them too as he tumbled over the hood and windshield of the jeep; snap-snap-snap, one after the other. He rolled over the side of the car and the jeep stopped fifty feet from where he lay in the road. He swore uproariously as he hurriedly set the bone in his leg which was the only one that had moved out of true when it broke. It had actually snapped forward at the break. He screamed as he set it. Couldn’t help himself, it was such a nasty break. Worse than he’d had in years. He’d scraped the side of his face raw on the road, and the underside of both arms. Both of his hands were bleeding from the palms. Then the brake lights of the car faded and it began to skid toward him in reverse.  
    “Stiles, stop!”  
    “What’s that, Scott? Couldn’t hear you over the sound of dick cheese splattering on my hood.”  
    Derek struggled to his feet, cried out at the pain where his bones hadn’t been able to knit together yet. He wasn’t ready, didn’t have time, he was going to need another ten minutes before the bones mended. He couldn’t get out of the road. One side of his lower body was completely useless, his leg hanging by what spare muscles and tendons hadn’t torn under the skin. The other side bore the cracked hip. Agony with every jarring half step. And even as he hobbled toward the retaining wall to throw himself over it he could see the jeep swerving in reverse to meet him. He wasn’t going to make it, didn’t have time. God, it hurt so much. Hurt like a bitch. He wasn’t going to make it.  
    “Stiles, stop! What the fuck are you doing!? Stop! STOP!”  
    “I got this, Scott. Seatbelt? Good.”  
    Hand on the low wall, tried to lift his leg over it. Couldn’t. So painful. So fucking painful. He was raving through the pain; “You little shit. Ooh, I am gonna kill you so nasty, you little shit! You little SHIT!”  
    The back bumper of the car stopped a centimeter from crushing him like a bug against the metal retaining wall. Derek heard the witch in the trunk slam against the door and fall back onto the mat.The lights were so bright, stunning him. His breath was still caught in his throat. He didn’t dare to move, didn’t dare to breathe.  
    The door of the jeep was kicked open hard on the driver’s side as Derek stumbled around the back of the car, grabbing at the frame of it to steady himself. He still had only one good leg though some of the tendons had connected again in the broken one, and his hip on the other side throbbed at the weight he had to put on it. Anguish. Kill this little runt, this stupid little Shrimp coming around the side of the car, stomping, breathing hard through his nostrils. Couldn’t believe he’d felt bad for the little shit for even a second. Kill him and string his intestines over the car like lights on a Christmas tree. But he couldn’t even zip up his wolf skin. The pain was too much. He could barely see. Lights blinding.  
    Derek didn’t hear the staticky pulsing, didn’t smell the crisp burnt odor of electricity until there were already five-thousand volts surging through his body from the tips of his hair to his blunt neutered toes which couldn’t have hoped to kick out with ripping talons from where he fell back on the pavement. His head cracked hard against the blacktop. Even as he fell the taser stayed pressed into his chest, right over his heart. Felt like a massive Charlie Horse in every single muscle in his body. His heart was skipping beats then going too fast. Way too fast. Was this what arrhythmia felt like? Not pleasant.  
    The Shrimp was looking down at him in complete and utter disdain, shirtless and shivering hard in the autumn wind. The boy was nearly crazed, singing softly; “Who’s afraid of the Big Bad Wolf, the Big Bad Wolf, the Big Bad Wolf?” Those pretty brown eyes that had looked so scared and angry the other night were narrowed in the purest hatred Derek had ever seen in anyone when he wasn’t looking in a mirror.  
    Derek’s heart was going to explode. There was no way someone’s heart could beat this fast and not explode. His muscles were so tight that his mouth was pulled into a shuddering grimace so wide that every tooth in his head was visible. His broken bones were dying to knit but the nonstop current was preventing a single cell in his body from functioning. Holy fuck, his heart was actually going to explode. Shitty novelists liked to say peoples’ hearts jackhammered when they were in love but, holy fuck - his heart really was vibrating like a jackhammer. Felt like it was crawling up his throat. Felt like he was going to puke up his entire cardiovascular system.  
    “Who’s afraid of the Big Bad Wolf? La-la-la-la-la, la.”  
    The charge stopped. Derek wasn’t sure if the battery had died or if the little Shrimp bastard had decided to show mercy. No, it was neither of those.  
    It was Scott. Scott had reached down and snatched the taser out of his friend’s hand. He’d thrown it over the side of the road into the bushes. They were yelling at each other. Derek couldn’t make out what they were saying. Heart was still hammering. It was all he could hear, his own heart like the bass in a club. Stiles was pointing down at him, stomping his foot, pointing at the trunk of the car where the witch was trussed up like a turkey for the oven. The Shrimp threw up his hands and banged his head against the frame of the jeep while Scott leaned low over Derek, who still couldn’t hear a word the young wolf-man was trying to say to him but could read his lips well enough to make out the words, “You OK, man?”  
    Derek tried to bite the poor boy before he could stop himself. He actually snapped his jaws at him but the pain of moving caused him to just yelp and piss himself a little. Scott made a face like he felt bad for him and stood back up. Humiliating. He could hear again. Heart was slowing down, but only barely. His sense of smell was returning too. He could hear the Shrimp rattling in the glove box of the jeep, crushing another one of those vile little blue pills and snorting it through a dirty bill that smelled like old ass and hooker sweat. Disgusting. Oh, he was going to kill that little Shrimp shit something nasty for this. He was going to send him to the Sheriff in twenty different boxes. He was going to tie a pretty little pink bow on every single one. He wished Dempsey had turned the lowlife little drug addict into a rabbit so he could bite off his entire head at the shoulders and chew on his eyeballs. Crunch, crunch. Peel him down to the meat with a nice sharp knife and make the rest of him into stew with carrots and potatoes and eat him with bread and wine. Probably cabernet, maybe a nice oaky merlot. Nice dark wine for a nice thick stew. Little jagoff, Derek cursed the day his father had met his mother from across a crowded barn and said, “Hey, sis, wanna have some fun?”  
    His bones were knit enough. Still hurt like hell but he was well enough now to push himself off the blacktop with his hands. Stiles was on his hands and knees in the underbrush now. Looking for his damn taser.  
    “Hey, hey, hey,” Scott said, rushing to Derek’s side and putting a hand on his chest. “Maybe don’t get up so fast after that.”  
    “After what?” Derek snapped, trying his best to not show how much he was still suffering. Trying not to tremble as he struggled to at least kneel. He was failing miserably. “After this little pencil dick hit me with his car? You couldn’t grab the wheel or something? Couldn’t grab the taser out of his hand before he got out of the car? What’d you think he was going to do with it? You forget the funny little fact that you’re strong enough to throw him like a fucking shot putter, Scott? Get your hands off me, you’re not gonna protect him from me. I said get your fucking hands off me.” Couldn’t believe he’d felt an ounce of warmth or compassion for the rancid little twerp who was climbing back onto the road, stuffing the taser into his back pocket but keeping his hand just near enough to it. A threat he wanted Derek to take note of. His eyes were still livid. Not afraid in the slightest. He actually lifted a foot to thrust into Derek’s face before Scott grabbed him by both arms and pulled him back.  
    “You fucker,” he said, railing against his friend’s arms which Scott had thrust under his and curled up to prevent him from falling on Derek where he sat.  
    “Oh, please,” Derek snorted. Try to sound tough. Don’t throw up. So hard to stand. Stomach churning. “Bring it on, you little pile of straws. You‘re made out of drugs and processed sugar.”  
    “Fuck you! You fucker, you sent us there to die! What the hell is that thing in there!? Sleeping Beauty!? You called that thing Sleeping Beauty!? You should have killed that thing while it was still asleep. If I knew how to kill one of you fuckers I would have already done it myself. Scott, get off me. Get off me now. I’m not done with him.”  
    “Stiles, he’s had enough. Jesus, you just ran the guy over and tased him, he’s had enough.” There was Scott. The voice of reason. Now that was a nice change of pace. Starry-eyed Scott McCall. “I can hear his heart going all off-beat still. You really hurt him. Look at him, he can't even stand. He’s had enough. It’ll be OK if you stop now.” The Shrimp stiffened at those last words, like Scott had said some secret magic words.  
    “Fine,” he said. “Let go of me.”  
    “If I let go of you are you going to try to hurt him again? Because I can’t protect you if you keep this up. He’s right about that.” Derek was steadily getting to his feet, using the jeep again to pull himself up. His hip was nearly finished healing. There was only a dull ache left there. The rib had already curled back into place nicely. His shinbone was almost there. It would take a couple more minutes, but it was almost there. That one had hurt worst of all. It was still pretty damn painful. Blame the shock treatment. “You promise you’re not going to try anything if I let you go?” Scott asked. The Shrimp huffed and pursed his lips. His skin was puckered from the cold. “Stiles. I’m not kidding. You crossed the line.”  
    “I CROSSED THE - Never mind. I’m fine. I’m good. I’m calm. I’m fine.”  
    “Good. I’m going to let you go, real slow. OK? Derek?” Scott looked to him where he was breathing hard against the car, one hand on his chest. Thumpa-thump, thumpa-thump. Not quite regular yet. But much slower, thankfully. He was still so dizzy. Trying so hard not to throw up. He was not going to throw up in front of Stiles-fucking-Stillinski. He was not going to let the little shit see how much he’d damaged him. “We did what you asked. Stiles actually quit the lacrosse team and got to the house two hours before I did. Swear to God, he did. I wanted to put it off and he chewed me out and went all by himself. He did it for you. So can you please not make this worse?”  
    “Get... Get out of the way, Scott," Derek said, huffing and puffing. There was no way he was going to be able to follow through on his threats the way he felt right now but he couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so pissed off. “I don’t give a damn what he did, get out of my way.”  
    “Merde a Dieu, why don’t you just bend him over the car? Promise we’ll look away, won’t we Scott?”  
    Stiles stopped struggling, frozen in terror. Scott let him go, arms falling to his side. The wolf skin began to climb Scott’s arms in panic at the sudden scent of tiger lilies and spice.  
    Derek relented to his insides, bending over to retch loudly and empty the contents of his stomach onto his ruined shoes. Jail food, processed chicken and a stale roll with a little milk that came up warm and sour. The taste of it made him heave a second time and the next wave came up nearly clear with just a little bit of blood. A warm rough hand patted his back and rubbed it in slow circles and he felt better instantly. His head cleared, the ache in his hip and leg disappeared immediately. Bastard! He threw the hand off and the sickness returned. The throbbing in his lower half ensued, though it was almost through. He wasn’t surprised in the slightest at the source of the new voice.  
    “Don’t touch me, Demps. I swear to God, don’t you dare put magick on me now.”  
    “I... I...” Stiles’ voice was trembling. Whether it was from fear or cold wasn’t apparent.  
    “Hogtied me like a sow for the knife? Please, Sugah. Ain’t the rope been braided that can hold me. Certainly not mah own belt and a pair of shoelaces.” Then the witch put his hand up and offered Stiles back his t-shirt and shoestrings with a crooked smile. “You look cold, Stiles Stillinski." Damn that honeyed voice. He wasn’t even angry at the boy. He was just batting him around like a kitten with a dust bunny, toying with him. Enjoying his fear. Derek forgot for a moment that he‘d wanted to gut the Shrimp and stumbled to put himself between the witch and the boys. He fell, and a quaking arm encircled his to keep him from landing on his face. He was a little staggered to find it was Stiles, shivering fiercely, milk-white skin covered in goose pimples. Stiles could barely hold him up, he was so much smaller than Derek. He was so cold. He could see the boy was appalled that he’d done it too, but his eyes didn’t linger on Derek long. They shot right back up to look at the witch. He didn’t dare to reach for his things.  
    The witch shrugged and stuffed both shirt and laces together into his back pocket like a handkerchief. Then he put his empty hand out again, gesturing toward Stiles’ waist where his hempen satchel was tied to the boy’s belt. “Ah’ll have that back now. Ah assume you know Ah could just take it but Ah’d rather you gave it back like a gentleman.”  
    Scott’s lupine voice was gruff with disquiet at the witch who seemed to have just appeared beside them on the dark road. “You... You didn’t even...” He was looking at the back of the jeep. “The door didn’t even open.”  
    Dempsey grinned slyly. “‘Course it did, Scott McCall. You just didn’t notice.” He tapped a finger to the side of his temple. “Funny thing about perception. Can be bent so easily with just a little - “  
    “Demps, if you say ‘hocus pocus’ I’m going to kill you. I don’t mean that figuratively in any way, shape, or form,” Derek growled. He began to pull off his jacket, offered it to Stiles who looked at him with bewilderment. “Call this a ceasefire, Shrimp. I’ll kill you tomorrow. Just take it. You’re gonna get sick. Take it. I don’t get cold.”  
    The witch’s voice had shocked him out of his killing rage. His animosity had dissolved like the evil cloud of birds from earlier at the sound of Dempsey’s voice, or rather it had shifted instantly to be directed at the tall lean young man with his smiling freckled face. And Derek had thought right away of Noah Stillinsky and his blind kindness, and of his son at eleven years old. Crying for his mother. His son who had stooped without thinking to steady him when he’d fallen even after all he’d put him through. After all they’d just put each other through in turn. He almost forgot entirely any acrimony he had ever felt toward Stiles Stillinski at all. He thought about how he had prayed to his mother to keep the boy safe. Why? Why had Stiles dropped to one knee to help him? They’d been trying to kill each other just now. Why?  
    But he knew. Of course he knew. Derek growled harshly at the witch and Stiles flinched a little at the sound as he slipped his slender arms into Derek’s filthy ripped jacket and zipped it up. It was enormous on him. He swam in it. “I told you not to touch me with your damn mojo, Demps. Stay the hell out of my head. His too.” Stiles actually gripped his arm hard at that, mortified. He’d realized just then what Derek had surmised on his own. Why his hatred had suddenly just melted away. “Don’t you touch him. You don’t ever fucking touch him. I’ll kill you if you touch him, you hear me? I’ll kill you stone dead. How the hell are you even doing that? I never let you do that.”  
    Dempsey smirked, his hand still outstretched. “Just tryin’ to lighten the mood. Just tryin’ to keep you pretty boys from tearing each other to pieces. Just tryin’ to make sure you stay honest with yourself, Derek Hale. Didn’t read your mind at all, though Ah think Ah can do it to just about anyone now. Ah think Ah could do it like it’s nothin’. Ain’t that somethin’? But Ah won’t, Ah promise Ah won’t. And Ah just gave you a nudge. Not makin’ you feel a thing that wasn’t already there, right under the surface. Just barely under your skin. You too, young man. You with your hot temper. Ah can see why he’s keen on you.” Damn him. Damn his eyes and damn his voice. “And like Ah told these boys earlier - well, like Ah said while in their presence. That ugly black thing shook something loose. Ah suppose Ah should apologize for all that back there, boys. Ah’m as shocked at mahself as you are, trust me. Ah think Ah have a little soul-searching to do. But for now Ah’d like mah bag, please and thank you sir.”  
    Supposed he should apologize? Derek nearly leapt at him, but he knew he wouldn’t be a match for him in the state he was in. He was almost whole again, almost himself. But hell, even at full capacity he would never be a match for Dempsey. Not now. Not now that something had “shaken loose” in that wicked little head, whatever that meant. It could only mean that he was more powerful now after waking than ever. And he could enter human minds now. He was a true psychic now, like his mother before him. His mother the Swamp Witch, who he'd called the most powerful woman he'd ever known. Derek wished he believed in God. He wished he had some belief to cling to in terror at that thought.  
    Stiles was looking at Derek like he needed to be told what to do. His hand was hovering over the cord where he’d tied the bag onto his own belt, still shivering but not as much. “Give it to him, Stiles. Just give it to him. Wait.” Derek reached for the cord and untied it himself, and he smelled a wave of pheromones roll off the boy when the back of his hand brushed his pelvic bone under the jacket, right on his soft white skin. Derek couldn’t conceal the heat in his face but did nothing to call attention to it. He took the bag himself and offered it to the witch. He did it so Stiles wouldn’t have to. “Take your damn bones." Dempsey tied it fast with quick, spidering fingers to his own belt which he had already replaced on his pants.  
    “Now that wasn’t so hard, was it? And not just bones, lover." He pulled open the satchel and pulled out a little earthenware and metal pipe and a simple little black lighter. He lit the pipe and pulled on it long and slow, exhaling a huge cloud of heady smoke. The breeze whipped it away almost instantly. “Mostly bones, though.” Then he nodded at Stiles, who tensed again. Scott prickled in his second skin, ready to leap in front of his friend. Derek stood straight up, tried to be imposing. “Ah could do something for that wrist, Sugah. You didn’t do that wrist any favors when you clobbered me back there. Hell of an arm on you though, Stiles Stillinski. Hell of an arm. Most grown men couldn’t clean mah clock like that. But Ah can fix that wrist right quick.”  
    “I told you,” Derek said. “You’re not touching him with your filthy magick, Demps. Stay the hell away from him. Don’t even speak to him.”  
    The witch shrugged, then offered the still-smoldering pipe. Derek recognized the odor of it. Opium, sharp and leafy. “Something for the pain, even? Neither of you? No?”  
    “Go to Hell. You’re not welcome here anymore,” Derek said. “Take your bones and your voodoo and get the hell out of my town.”  
    The tall lean young man laughed, choked a little on the acrid smoke and coughed. “Your town. Your town. Now that’s funny. How long’s it been since you been home, lover?”  
    “You don’t get to call me that anymore.”  
    “Derek, then. How long’s it been since you’ve been home, Derek?” But then the witch’s smile disappeared, just wiped right off his face, replaced by a sullen realization. “Well... Well, bon Dieu. Derek... Derek, what happened to the house?”  
    Derek’s blood ran ice cold.  
    “Derek... It was all burnt up. Ah couldn’t lay hands on anything, that ugly black thing had all mah attention. But... Nobody’d been in that house for years until just a few days ago. Ah could tell that much easy enough. Derek, what happened to the house?” Then he asked the question Derek dreaded, the question that was going to determine just how much blood was going to be spilled in the coming weeks of his life. “Derek... Where is everyone? Where are they? Where’s Talia gone? And the girls? And... Where is everyone?”  
    But he already knew, and he was already crying without sobbing. The tears just began to pour from his eyes, and he took a deep drag from the billowing opium. Derek’s well-earned hostility toward his adopted brother cracked just a bit then. He almost yearned to comfort him. Almost. The sobs were coming now, wracking the tall lean young man’s shoulders.  
    “Ah had visions, the night by the creek. Ah had... Visions. Ah smelled smoke. Heard them screaming. And that was you, Derek. You with the gun in your mouth. Oh, God...” He looked up at Derek squarely in the eyes, his own caramel eyes evoking a deep, deep pain. “Laura... Oh, Laura. Ah saw her. Ah saw her, that was Laura. She didn’t die with them, but she’s gone too. Derek... Who’s left? Is anyone left?”  
    Derek felt the emotion overcoming him as well. He began to shake a little. Fought back his own tears. Stiles actually slipped his hand fearlessly into Derek’s and Derek looked down at it, startled, that tiny white hand in his huge palm. So soft and supple. No longer cold. He actually sobbed once - just once - something he hadn’t done in front of another living being in years, then he looked up and closed his eyes for just a moment before he could go on. Here it comes, Mom. Help me, Mom. Help me make him understand that you don’t want him to spill blood on your behalf. Help me make him understand that you would never have wanted that.  
    “Peter,” said Derek. Dempsey gasped, put a hand to his mouth to hide the way his face had twisted. He began to cry harder.  
    “Uncle Peter,” he said through the tears. “Tough old bastard. Uncle Peter...”  
    “He’s catatonic, Demps. He hasn’t... He hasn’t spoken in years.”  
    “Oh, God... Oh, God...” A car was coming down the road, maybe half a mile away, until the witch whispered, “Turn ‘round. Come back this way later,” then looked apologetically up at Derek for abusing his power. The questions kept coming. “How long?” Derek took a small step forward not letting go of Stiles and reached a hand to put on the witch’s shoulder, to steady him, but he swatted it away. Took another drag on the pipe. “How long? You tell me, Derek Hale. Ah’m going back to that house to lay hands on everything there is left to know for mahself, but Ah want you to tell me first.”  
    “I don’t think that’s a good idea tonight. Not after what just happened there.”  
    “Ah could give a water rat’s ass what you think’s a good idea, Derek Hale. You don’t have to come with me.” He sobbed hard again, choking on it. “Ah’ll go on mah own, Ah won’t put anyone in danger again. But Ah’m gonna know. You know you can’t stop me. So tell me first. How long?”  
    “...Demps, you have to be careful when you go there. When you put your hands on the walls and floorboards. Don’t... Don’t let it consume you. Don’t turn into... Whatever that was that you became earlier. Don’t let it consume you again.”  
    “Derek, tell me how long. Ah mean it. Damn you, Ah mean it.”  
    “...A year after you left.”  
    The witch doubled over and Derek hadn’t felt the compulsion for so long to rush to him and throw his arms around him. Instead he squeezed Stiles’ hand, and the boy squeezed his in return. It was nice. He told himself it didn’t mean anything, but it was nice. He might have almost been compelled to thank Dempsey for this, opening this simple contact between him and this angry young man who seemed now much more than just that.  
    “Six years. Six years. Oh, God. Oh, God, Ah was... Where was Ah? Ah was in Nepal. Ah was on a mountain, chasing power. Oh, God, Talia. Mah little Cora. Little Cora, baby girl climbing on mah shoulders. Oh, God, why didn’t Ah come home sooner? Why did Ah have to leave home like a fool? Talia, she gave me shelter. She gave me shelter and loved me like I was hers.” And then he said the words Derek had repeated to himself over and over and followed with a reprimand every time, telling himself it wasn’t Dempsey’s fault, that Dempsey wasn’t to blame; “Ah could have saved them all. Mah poor baby girl, Ah could have saved her. Oh, Cora.”  
    “Don’t think on that. You couldn’t have known. And Demps, you were hers. You were. You were Mom’s son as much as I was.”  
    But the witch shook his head and the tears flecked off his freckled cheeks. “Never as much as you, Sugah. Never. Ah don’t resent you one bit for it, that’s just how it is. That woman’s love for you was the most powerful magick Ah’ve ever known.” Maybe Dempsey wasn’t all gone. It seemed this might be him, the boy Derek had loved once, the man he still loved in some hidden place within him. But then he remembered the screaming cloud, the cursed knife, the streaming blood, that wild laughter echoing out over the preserve.  
    “Demps... Don’t go there tonight. Come to my motel and I’ll buy you a room. Don’t sleep in the woods tonight, even if you can throw up another ward against the Alpha. I’m sure you could do it. God knows when we’ll ever see that bastard again anyway after what you did to him. Come to my motel and you can sleep in a bed like a person. When was the last time you slept in a bed? We’ll go get you some new clothes tomorrow and get a real meal in you.”  
    The witch’s eyes turned down, tears still falling. “Are you that afraid of me, Sugah? Ah guess Ah would be, too. Ah guess Ah am. Ah’m... Stiles, Ah’m sorry Ah did that to you. You can’t know how sorry. Ah never meant to. Ah made it right it as soon as Ah could, as soon as mah head was right. Ah took the fix off you. All that hatred you felt, all that rage that made you run him right down in the road.”  
    Stiles nodded and spoke for the first time in what had seemed a lifetime. “That was you. Because I touched you. It was all you. I know. It didn’t happen to Scott because those birds had already driven him out of his mind. I’d never... I get angry sometimes but I would have never done that.” He was so quick, so wise. He said it with understanding, like he was accepting the apology in different words. But Derek could still smell a deep spring of hostility toward the witch seated beneath the boy's naked fear. Then Stiles looked up at Derek and squeezed his hand again, more sure of himself. “I would have never done that.”  
    Derek smiled. Couldn’t help himself. But it didn‘t mean anything. Couldn‘t mean anything. It was... Just for now, just for this moment. “Loud and clear, Shrimp. Consider this a permanent stay of execution. How ‘bout it, Demps? A good night’s sleep first. I’ll go with you to the house myself, but... Just give it some time. Give it a day or two. Get some real sleep, not some magicked coma. Watch some TV first and order some shitty room service, on me. Eat some food you didn’t kill with your bare hands and sleep in a bed.”  
    The witch sniffed, looked at Derek’s side where Stiles’ hand was still laced tightly in his. “Not your bed, though? No, of course not. Just one thing, Derek. Let me see your hand. The other one. You can keep holding onto that one.” He said that last thing to Stiles.  
    “This the best time for a palm reading, Demps?”  
    “Just so Ah can know,” said Dempsey. “You can refuse me. But Ah’d sleep better knowing.” Knowing what? Derek sighed and opened his hand to him, extending his arm and turning his palm upward. Dempsey took his hand in both of his, furrowed his brow as he used one long finger to trace the lines, muttering to himself imperceptibly in French. Then he made a sad face. He smiled almost entirely to himself then curled Derek’s fingers back up and relinquished the hand, pushing it back toward him.  
    “What was that?” asked Derek, truly curious. “What did you see?”  
    Dempsey shook his head. The gold bands in his hair made a soft rhythm against each other when he did this. “Nothing you don’t know yourself, Derek Hale. But you keep on lying to yourself about it. It’ll make for some good stories to tell your children some day.” What the hell was that supposed to mean? But the witch had already opened the back door of the car and motioned for Scott to get in ahead of him. “Beauty before age, Scott McCall. Ah imagine these two will want the front seats. Think it’s time we were going, huh?” And Scott just strode past him, his wolf skin already shed, and before climbing in the car put his hand on Dempsey’s arm the way he did so often for Stiles. Derek was continually astonished by Scott, by the honest, unaffected empathy he was constantly showing. He had been terrified of the witch just before.  
    They dropped Scott off at home first. His mother was already gone for the night again. He opened the driver door and hugged Stiles tight for a full five minutes before he went inside. Then Stiles wheeled the car around the suburbs to the Best Western on the edge of town where Derek had been staying since he returned. He waited by the jeep as Derek purchased a room three doors away from his own for his adopted brother then walked the tall lean young man to it. The door was on the outside of the building like a typical motel and the cracked walkway was littered with weeds. Derek did embrace him now before he closed the door on him. It was quick and forlorn, but he did take him in his arms and hold him for just a few short moments.  
    “Before you go to him,” said Dempsey, smiling at Stiles who was pretending not to watch them from the jeep parked some fifty feet away. “And swoop him up in these big powerful arms - ”  
    “It’s not like that, Demps,” Derek cut him off. “He’s just a... He’s just sixteen.” But the witch put a finger on his lips and shushed him.  
    “He’s not 'just’ anything, believe you me Derek Hale. Now, what in the hell did Ah say about lying to yourself?" Well, that was chilling. Damn his eyes. “But that isn’t what Ah wanted to say. Ah wanted to ask you something.  
    “Ah told you Ah had visions by the creek. Ah told you Ah saw you trying to take your own life after Ah smelled the smoke and heard their screams, but there was more than that. There was a man in a hospital, but that must have been Uncle Peter. That was Peter, wasn’t it?” Derek nodded. “We’ll have to go see him, and soon. Uncle Peter... But there was more than that.” His voice was growing low. Derek was just a little worried at that, and he was right to be. “Ah saw a woman. Couldn’t make out her face or the shade of her hair. But she was laughing. Laughing like one of the Furies, drinking champagne and just laughing. Evil sound. Gunpowder on her hands. Sulfur in her hair like she’d been playing with explosives and flammable things.”  
    Derek looked at his adopted brother in the doorway with fresh terror, but the witch shook his head a final time. “Ah won’t make you say her name. Ah know you know her name but Ah won’t make you let me in on it just yet. Ah know you, Derek Hale. If you could have killed her by now then you would have. For all she did, Ah know you would have. But now Ah’m here and mah eyes are open and the well of mah strength seems to be running deeper than ever. Ah feel like Ah could conquer the world. If that scares you then so be it. But when you’re ready, you come to me and you just say her name. And once Ah know her name I’ll make sure she suffers before she dies.”  
    “I knew you’d react like this. I knew.” But Dempsey only shushed him again.  
    “When you’re ready. Just say her name, and the name of her ancestors. The things Ah’ve learned? She will suffer for what she did to them. To Uncle Peter. She will beg me to make an end of it. You come to me when you’re ready and only when you’re ready.” And with that he kissed Derek quickly on the cheek and shut the door. Derek heard him flick on the TV inside and run the shower. He needed a hot shower himself. A nice long one.  
    Stiles cleared his throat behind him and he crossed the parking lot at a jog to stand by him by the jeep.  
    “You need gas money or anything?” Idiot. It was a stupid thing to open with but he didn’t know what else to say now that they were alone. They’d never been alone before. But it had only been two days. Not even two full days.  
    “Probably, but I’ve got some,” said Stiles, who didn’t look up at him until he was finished tapping out a quick text on his phone. “Don’t want you to think I’m after all that ‘Fuck you’ Hale money." What did that mean? “Can I ask you a really stupid question that I already know the answer to but I’m gonna kick myself if I don’t ask it anyway?”  
    “Shoot.”  
    “Can I stay here with you tonight?”  
    Derek flushed. He flushed hard and dark red, he could feel it all over his face and down his neck. “Shrimp... Stiles... Your dad - ”  
    “Thinks I’m at Scott’s,” was the boy’s quick, obviously practiced answer.  
    He was... He was adorable. Not just sharp and kind and tougher than he looked, but adorable. Derek couldn’t lie to himself about that. He’d been so caught up in everything - in trying to help Dempsey and mourning Laura - that he’d never stopped to just look at this boy the way he was now. This boy who had surprised and amazed him more in less than forty-eight hours than he could remember anyone ever doing before. That included Dempsey Bonaventure and all his hocus pocus. And he realized suddenly that this boy knew. He had been reluctant and fearful of it at first but after tonight - after all the violence and horror had stopped and they’d just been holding each others’ hands there on the side of the road - he knew that Derek was looking at him completely differently now.  
    Derek laughed, nervously. “That’s not what I meant, Stiles. I mean, it sort of is and isn’t. I mean that your dad is going to shoot me in the balls. I’m almost ten years older than you and your dad just arrested me last night on a homicide charge.”  
    Stiles didn’t seem so much as phased by that, though. “You said ‘is’, not ‘would’. 'Is' going to shoot you in the balls. Add this to the long list of shit I’m going to have to talk to my dad about soon enough. And he’s not going to shoot you in the balls. I’ll protect your precious balls. How did he treat you when he released you?”  
    “Like... Like a human being. Like a decent human being.” Stiles nodded, smiling softly as Derek dug in his wallet for the business card. Pryanka Parashar, MD. It was soaking wet and covered in mud but Stiles was still able to recognize it immediately.  
    “That’s my dad. He’ll... OK, he’ll understand when I tell him I’m gay. It’s my dad, he won’t care about that. I know my dad loves me unconditionally. Should let him know I know more often. He may not understand this right away.” He took Derek’s hand again, drew close to him. Put the hand with the cast on his chest. And Derek let him. He wasn’t sure what kind of power this boy with his sensible buzz cut and spasmodic tendencies had over him, just what kind of magick it was. He was still wearing Derek’s jacket. Swimming in it. “This might take some getting used to for all parties involved.”  
    “Stiles, I can’t do this,” Derek insisted, but even he knew he was lying. It kind of felt like when the taser was shooting a lightning storm through his chest. His heart jackhammering. He kept on trying to lie, anyway. “There can’t be a ‘this’. Stiles, I'm not even human. I mean, sometimes I am, but even when I look like this I'm never going to be completely human. I can’t drag you down further into the shit heap that is my life. I... I put you in so much danger. God, did I ever even apologize for that?” His hand came up and lighted on the boy’s face, which he noticed was sprouting a soft layer of peach fuzz. There were dark circles under his eyes. “Because I’m sorry. I can’t believe Demps apologized before I did. I put you in so much danger. You almost died.”  
    “Oh, shut up. I hit you with my car and then some, I think we’re even now.” He pressed his face into Derek’s hand, kissed the palm gently. Derek’s hand, so big it nearly covered the boy’s face, shivered along with the rest of him. “I don’t need Edward Cullen. I don’t need you to stalk me and climb into my window every night and watch me sleep to keep me safe. OK? I don’t need some teenage wet dream about a guy who just wants to lift me onto a pedestal and put me under a sheet of glass like I’m a porcelain doll. I don’t 'need’ anything. But I want you. I think I realized it the second your psycho ex-boyfriend took his little accidental fix off me and I saw how much I’d hurt you. It... It hurt me, seeing you in so much pain. Knowing I’d done it, just as soon as my head cleared. You’re right, I almost died today. But that’s why I can say this without making a bunch of dumb jokes and spazzing and making a huge mess of it the way I do everything else. That’s why I can say this after only knowing you a day and a half. I’ve seen some shit these last two nights, Derek. Shit I’m never going to be able to forget. I’m already in on this, you said it yourself. What are you gonna say next? Are you gonna tell me that everyone you care about gets hurt?”  
    Derek put his other hand on the opposite side of his face and felt the boy sigh contentedly into both his palms, closing his eyes. His breath was sour but not unpleasant in the slightest. He wanted to kiss him but he wouldn't. Wanted to kiss him so damn bad but he couldn't. “They do though, Shrimp. That sound stupid? That sound like an Edward Cullen thing?”  
    “Yeah, actually. Get over it. I did good today. I think I did damn good. Guess you do care about me, though.”  
    “Obvious trap,” Derek chuckled. Boy was wafting pheromones all over his face. Smelled so musky and sweet. It was making his knees wobble. “Fell right into it. Don’t say you know the feeling, I think another cliche might do me in.”  
    “So what if, instead of making this into another shitty teen werewolf movie - ”  
    “I thought those movies were about vampires.”  
    “There were werewolves, too. They never wore shirts. You should take a cue. But what I was about to say is that we should just go into your room and lay down and watch some TV before bed. We can take separate showers. You don’t even have to kiss me." Like he'd read Derek's mind. "We can take it slow. I think we both need to take this slow. But I don’t think I’ve slept yet since this entire mess started, since the night I went out with Scott and he got hurt and our entire sad little lives got turned upside down. I went down for maybe an hour the first night but last night I sat awake thinking about you until the sun came up. About you being all alone in that little cell. All night. Didn’t even read a book or watch something on my phone. Just laid there and thought about you. So if you feel inclined to be overprotective then protect me if it makes you feel better. I can’t say it doesn’t make some part of me feel special, the way you threatened to kill your ex for me. But I think I discovered for myself these last two nights I’m pretty damn good at protecting myself. Even from him. Whatever he is. When I was backing up after I hit you the first time I stopped the car of my own accord. I think I was fighting that fix the entire time. And I think if I go into that room with you now and lay down with you I might actually get some sleep for the first time in days. And I think I want to sleep just as much as I want you. Is that OK? Tell me you don’t want me too and I’ll go home right now. But you’re not going to tell me that. So let’s just go take separate showers and lay down and watch some TV, OK? You don’t even have to kiss me.”


	5. The Invisible People

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The One With The Motel Room And All The Exposition...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So somebody brought it to my attention that I've been misspelling Stiles' last name with two "L's this entire time! Eek! I guess Stillinski with two "L"s just sat better with me unconsciously. And since we're five chapters in we're riding this horse to the finish line. Giddyap.  
> Also, I quoted a little Kipling which I obviously DO NOT own in any way shape or form. Please don't sue me, I don't fuckin' have anything. <3

STILES hadn’t slept so well in years. Not since he was a child. He’d snorted an Adderall forty-five minutes before entering the frigid little motel room with Derek, right after Scott had wrenched the taser out of his hand on the side of the road. He’d thought he’d be tossing all night. He’d thought Derek would get sick of him half an hour into the night. He’d been absolutely terrified that Derek would get sick of him, that whatever delusion this was that had resulted in him sitting on the bed wringing his hands while the dark man lingered in the shower was going to decompose over a matter of minutes as he swung his legs beneath the sheets and turned from side to side fitfully.  
    Derek sang in the shower. Well, it was perhaps too much to suggest that he sang. He hummed in a deep quiet bass that vibrated against the tiles. It was a lovely, resonate sound. Stiles couldn’t place the tune but he’d never imagined in the short time he’d known the man that Derek would be the musical type. It was... God, it was a hell of a turn on. It was just plain sexy. But there wasn’t much about the guy that wasn’t sexy.  
    The impact of just saying it, just out and out asking Derek if he could stay the night, was beginning to set in. The anxiety was creeping in. Stiles couldn’t believe he’d done it. He couldn’t believe he’d held it together, been so cool and nonchalant about it when in truth he’d been afraid the dark man could hear his teeth chattering in his head. He’d been straight to the world two days ago. Well, to everyone but Scott. He’d had this quiet suspicion that Scott had known for awhile. Scott had been dropping little hints here and there that he wanted to talk about it all summer, and the other day he’d just come out with it on the lacrosse field - “How do you feel about Lydia these days?" It had been in retaliation, but there it was. Answer? He didn’t. He simply didn’t feel a thing. Maybe he’d given her a little consideration here and there in passing recently but he knew beyond a doubt now that Lydia Martin had never been anything more than an excuse. Just a wall he’d been building around himself since he was eight years old. And what better wall, what stronger bastion was there to hide behind than Lydia Martin? Lydia Martin who was made out of fire and steel-spiked heels. He wished he could have shared this with his mother. He knew his mother would have thrown her arms around him and told him she was so happy for him. He hoped his dad would, too.  
    He really, really hoped his dad wouldn’t shoot Derek in the balls.  
    But Derek Hale. What could he even begin to say about Derek Hale? The power of the witch’s touch had shaken him to the bone when he came out of it. He couldn’t believe what he’d done, seeing that tower of a man broken on the road. It had been like a light flickering on, all the darkness in his soul banished in a single sweep. He was sickened with himself and disgusted that something as simple as a few moments of skin to skin contact with that gumbo-slurping freak could pull that kind of rancor out of his core. Like Scott when he had shifted skin for the first time and turned his teeth and claws on his best friend.  
    That magick-born creature with his dark evil powers - Stiles hated him. He felt for him too, surely. He’d actually felt so bad for the damn monster watching his face crumble like that, finding out that his entire family was gone. But more than anything, seeing the witch break into a million pieces in those tense moments of grief had made him want to cleave to Derek. Derek who had been living with that pain for six years, who’d looked so fragile. When all that malicious intent had flooded out of him he could only feel a grinding need to be honest with himself, to try to pull Derek to his feet. Derek who had moved instantly to protect him when the witch just appeared beside them on the road. Stiles didn’t think he had ever feared anything or anyone like he feared this Dempsey Bonaventure. He hadn’t even feared the huge black werewolf this much.  
    But even more than that he hated him. The son of a bitch had caused him to hurt Derek. Whether or not he’d intended it, whether Derek had healed or not, just with a touch that evil son of a bitch had opened some door in Stiles’ heart and made him feel a kind of discord he’d never felt in his life. A kind of anger and hatred he’d never even felt after losing his mother. Something he never wanted to feel again.  
    When he’d begun to speed up on the road where Derek stood before the car waving his hands it had been Stiles at the wheel. The witch hadn’t taken over his mind, he’d simply pushed him. Just pushed him enough when he was already pissed off at the dark man to cause him to do something unforgiveable. So what if when it was over he’d discovered some real, honest affection for this man? So what if when it was over he’d stopped lying to himself and actually had the courage to take the dark man’s hand? Stiles wasn’t a violent person. He’d struck Derek the day they met out of desperation, because his perception of the world had just been destroyed by the sight of his best friend turning into a creature from a nightmare. He’d had fits and rages after his mother died. But he’d never considered himself a violent person. The faded white scars up and down his arms were evidence enough that any violent inclination he’d ever felt had only been directed at himself.  
    So imagine his horror to see that, this man who’d been at the forefront of his mind when he’d thought he was going to bite it between the great black werewolf’s teeth - this man who in that moment he’d wished he could have kissed just once before he died - fractured on the road. Shattered. And it had been Stiles who’d done it. Stiles who had mowed him down in his jeep then shoved the taser into his chest. Stiles who hadn’t even known then that he was under some voodoo thrall. Stiles who’d thought in those horrific moments that this was who he was, this person made out of pain and rage.  
    A hand on his shoulder in midst of this reverie caused him to jump. He shouted a little and threw up his hands.  
    “Whoa, whoa, Shrimp. Armistice, remember? Ceasefire?"  
    “Sorry! Sorry, sorry, I’m sorry. Oh..."  
    Derek was dripping just a little. He’d dried off for the most part but there was a fine perspiration coming off his sodden hair and neck and dribbling down his uncovered trunk. In the chill of the rumbling air conditioner a stark mist was coming off his heat-blushed skin.  
    “There, uh... I don’t have any clean clothes. All my clothes are covered in mud and shit.” It was almost comical, the way this... This gorgeous - yes, that was fine, it was fine to think he was gorgeous - man with his enormous tight round pectorals was looking around the sparse carpeted room in pure confusion at what to do next. The white motel towel was tight and high on his waist, like he’d tried to cover up as much he could before coming out of the bathroom, but Stiles could still see the sharp outline of his pelvic bones through the strained terry cloth. Among other things. He tried so hard to look the tall man with his sopping dark hair in the eyes. “Uh... Stiles?"  
    “Yes! Yes? Sorry, yes?" Never kissed a girl much less a boy. And here he was with a... With a man. The kind of man you buy sealed in mylar at the porn store so that you can’t see what’s between the pages of the magazine until you get home and split the plastic under your sheets. Not that Stiles had ever done that. If he’d ever had access to a fake ID he certainly would’ve already had that notch on his belt, but as it was his belt was virginal in every sense of the word. Thank God for the Internet. The Internet had probably been what confirmed it for him, the gay thing. Well, the Internet and Derek Hale, dripping from his abundant chest hair and his... Other hairs. God, he had a lot of hair. “Clothes, yes. I hear you, yes. I have... Clothes. In car. In my car. Sweats. Have sweats. I have sweats. Sweats?"  
    The dark man was amused at his idiotic stammering. Oh, thank God, he was smiling. It seemed he’d smiled more in the last half hour than Stiles could have ever thought him capable of. Is that me, he wondered? Could it be me? Please let it be because of me. He put his hands on my face, please let it be because of me. “If you think they’ll fit," said Derek.  
    “Tight."  
    “...do you taste pennies, Shrimp?"  
    “Pardon?"  
    “It’s a stroke thing. Are you having a stroke?"  
    “No, no. No pennies. Tasty. No! I don’t taste pennies. I’ll get ‘em. The sweats. They’ll be tight. Might be short. But they’re clothes." Stiles was markedly aware suddenly that he was still wearing his sweaty jeans and Derek’s gigantic dirty leather jacket while the dark man was standing there like Paris of Troy with just a towel between him and the open air. Tasty? He wasn’t going to live that one down any time soon. Blame the Adderall. Just blame the Adderall later. He really did like this jacket though. How did one go about cleaning a leather jacket without ruining it? He wanted to clean it for him. “I’ll be right back. Don’t move. I mean, move if you want to. Do whatever you want to. I’ll be right back."  
    He rushed out and the door locked automatically behind him before he realized he didn’t have his car keys. When he knocked it opened again right away and Derek was standing there in the towel with the keys ready in hand. Still smiling crookedly. Just a little mockingly. But a smile was a smile.  
    “Thank you."  
    “You got it."  
    The light gray sweatpants were stuffed beneath the front passenger seat of the jeep. An identical pair of them, one for Stiles and one for Derek, with the bugeyed mascot for the Beacon Hills Cyclones emblazoned on the right leg of both in cracking screen print. They were folded. They’d been clean when he tossed them back there a week ago. They were probably still clean enough now. Cleaner than Derek’s mud-drenched clothes, anyway. His underwear was probably ruined too. He’d been soaking wet on the road. Smelled like a sewer. Probably why he didn’t come out of the bathroom in a pair of boxers. Or briefs.  
    Wonder if he’s a boxer man or if he wears briefs, Stiles thought? His clothes are in the bathroom, I can just look. OK, that’s weird. Still going to do it, though. Just curious. These sweats were going to be so tight on him. Just a little giddy at that.  
    “You don’t even have to kiss me." In sixteen years of verbal regurgitation Stiles didn’t think he’d ever said anything so stupid. He’d never regretted saying anything so much in his entire life.  
    “Ain’t too late to take it back. Wouldn’t even have to say it to him out loud."  
    Stiles fell out of the side of the jeep, sweats clutched in his hand. The door closed behind him as he sprawled on the broken pavement, pushed shut by a rough gloved hand. He rolled backward, swore, and tumbled to his feet somehow. “Get the hell away from me. Get out of my head."  
    The witch was leaning on the frame of the jeep, smoking out of that strange little pipe again. “Oh, come on, Sugah. Can’t manage a little girl talk?"  
    Stiles scrambled to gather the sweatpants which had come unraveled. “Stop doing that. Stop just... Being there. Stop it. I hate you. God, I hate you so much."  
    “Understandable, chere. Ah think Ah’d hate me, too. Ah think Ah do, just a little. Maybe more than a little."  
    “You’re a fucking monster, you know that? Just because you always have some smooth diatribe to roll back with, it doesn’t mean you’re not a fucking monster," Stiles said, advancing on him with his middle finger in the air. The lean young freckled man was reclining barefoot with his elbow on the car wearing just his gloves and that tattered gray shirt with the bloodstained jeans. He'd taken the gold bands out of his hair and pulled loose the braids, and the hair framing his face was curled in tight ringlets from the braids. “Stay the hell away from me."  
    “Sugah, you don’t know anything about monsters, trust me. That man in there? That ‘gorgeous’ man - ?"  
    “Already heard you," said Stiles quickly, and he realized right away just how wrong that was. “Oh, for... He can’t hear you, can he?"  
    “No, but he can hear you. ‘Cause Ah let him. He’s gonna come running any second now. He’s wondering what to wear, if he shouldn’t just come dashing out here in his birthday suit. Ain’t he something under those clothes? Mah poor man. The Black Knight, so torn about what armor he’s going to don to come carry you out of the jaws of the dragon."  
    Stiles cursed again and turned back toward the door of the room. Wondered if Derek could really hear him. If this wasn’t all just some game. Wondered if the witch wasn’t just playing with him. Fine, you want to play games, you freak? “Derek, I’m fine. I can take this asshole. You’re fine, I don’t need you to save me. I can take him. I took him once tonight."  
    Dempsey Bonaventure threw his head back and rocked with laughter. That wild laughter. Evil. “Ah really can see why he’s so keen on you, Sugah. But you ain’t got nothing to worry about from me. Even if he wouldn’t find some way to kill me stone dead if Ah did a thing to you, just like he said. Ah believe he would, Ah do. A boy can’t even try for a little girl talk, though? Really? You trying to say you don’t want to talk about him? That you don’t want to know more about him?"  
    Stiles was struck again with that burning confrontational feeling. He’d started more confrontations in the last two days than he thought he’d ever had his life. And it wasn’t coming from the witch this time. At least not in the form of any quiet magick, or so he hoped. “I know all I need to know about him." It wasn’t exactly true. And the witch knew, of course he knew.  
    Laughter again, dripping like honey. Honey and poison. “Poor boy. You poor boy. ‘What have the Free People to do with a man’s cub?'" What did that mean? He was quoting something. “He’s coming for you. He’s had enough."  
    “Derek," Stiles said evenly. “Just give me five minutes with this dirty little crawdad. Just five minutes. I’ll put him in his place myself. You don’t have to save me."  
    His phone went off. It was a number he didn’t recognize but he knew who it was immediately when he read the text; “You have two, then we’re going to the Hyatt after I paint the walls with him." Well, wasn’t that romantic? When had he given Derek his number?  
    Dempsey dragged on the pipe and offered it to Stiles. “You really gotta loosen up a bit, Sugah. All that tension’s bad for your health. All that speed. This here’ll set you right, put you in a nice happy place. A body doesn’t need all that speed. A little spiky Buddha’ll do you a world of good. Auntie Em’s a real nice lady, ‘specially since Loverboy won’t let me heal up that wrist for you."  
    Stiles snorted. So that was what was in that thing. Didn't smell quite like weed, and he lit it from the bottom of the clay bowl like a crack pipe. “Auntie Em? I’m sorry, did you just offer me opium in the dirty parking lot of a Best Western? Is this what my life has been reduced to? Do they not have security cameras in Podunk, Louisiana?"  
    His phone vibrated again; “Take nothing he gives you." Duh.  
    “Ah find the Western world has a rather backwards attitude toward poppy tears. Ah blame the Victorians, but Ah blame the Victorians for a lot. Rightfully, Ah might add. And by the way, just so you know in the future? Ah don’t show up on cameras. Not when Ah don’t want to. Bending light this way and that isn’t all too hard once you get the hang of it." Well, that was certainly discomforting. Stiles tried not to be rattled by it.  
    “Funny, I find the term ‘backwards’ usually means the exact opposite when it’s spoken with a Southern accent," Stiles shot back. “And what were you going to say, just before? When you were talking about monsters? You really think you’re going to scare me out of what I feel about him after what you did to me? To us? You, of all people? You’re covered in blood and smoking raw heroin out of what looks like a homemade pipe. That’s probably why he called you Sleeping Beauty, you’re a dope fiend on top of everything. What, are you going to tell me he’s killed people? Are you going to tell me how many? You think I give a shit?" He hoped Derek heard that. He was going all Twilight, going all Bella Swan but he didn’t quite care just then. “I’m probably a little touched in the head that it doesn’t bother me, but if you hadn’t noticed my best friend just took a pretty big step in that direction. There’s some chance my best friend might kill somebody at some point. Seemed earlier like he might actually have some kind of grip on this werewolf thing but you never know, right? I don’t think there’s much you could say at this point that could get my goat, you arrogant crawdad. Especially after that little Hitchcock revival you pulled back at the house."  
    But the witch persisted. “What Ah was going to say was that the only person living or dead who thinks Derek Hale is a monster is Derek Hale, Sugah. But if you really want to know how many?"  
    “You’re pathetic. Go fuck yourself,” Stiles spat, turning to leave with the rumpled clothes gripped in a tight fist at his side.  
    “Just one, Sugah," called the witch after him. “Just the one. Derek Hale ain’t no monster, not by a long shot. We both know you already fingered the real monster here. But you’re going to have a hell of a time convincing him of that. Ask him who she was someday. He might actually tell you. Not tonight, though. Not if you plan on chasing that first kiss."  
    Stiles could handle just one. He’d been imagining a lot more than just one.  
    The door to Derek’s room opened just as Stiles stepped over the curb in front of it. Derek was still in the towel, holding it at his waist. He put his hand reassuringly on Stiles’ back as he re-entered the room and whispered something as he shut the door behind him, something that Stiles thought sounded like, ‘Just when I was starting to feel sorry for you.' He wasn’t sure, he couldn’t quite hear it. But the witch could.  
    “What did he say to you?"  
    Stiles handed him one pair of sweatpants and shucked off the jacket, tossing it into the corner. “He said you have shitty taste in men."  
    Derek frowned. “If it’s any consolation my taste in women hasn’t been any less dubious over the years." He scratched Stiles’ back lightly and Stiles actually moaned a little before he caught himself. “And if that doesn’t make you feel better, you should know my taste in men isn’t always shitty."  
    "If I’m any indication?"  
    “That was implied, but thanks for ruining it."  
    “It’s sort of what I do. Are there more towels in there?" Derek nodded, and as he turned to lock the door Stiles took note for the first time of a large dark tattoo between his well-muscled shoulder blades. It was a perfectly symmetrical symbol, three spirals connected at a hub. He’d seen that symbol in books before, carved onto Neolithic columns and Celtic pottery. He couldn’t remember what it meant.  
    “Derek," he said. “That triskelion."  
    Derek turned, arching his brows. “Wow. You continue to surprise me."  
    Stiles shook his head. “I only know what it’s called. What is it for?"  
    “Just something I got after the fire," Derek explained. “A sigil of action and movement. It represents how people are always moving forward in life, whether actively or passively. Whether they’re actively seeking to better their lives and become stronger people or say, camping out in the Mojave munching on foxes and feeling sorry for themselves. Life goes on in one form or another."  
    “Not those cute little desert foxes with the big ears!?"  
    “Easy to catch even if they’re a little stringy. Kind of like jerky. Know what isn’t bad either? Gila monster. Now, those little guys are juicy."  
    Stiles made a face. “I’ll take your word for it. Bet the neurotoxin gives it a nice little kick." He paused. “He brought you back here, didn’t he? No way you could have known about your sister if you were out in the middle of nowhere. It was him."  
    Derek nodded. “That brain of yours never ceases to amaze me. I didn’t realize it until I was already here and everything began going downhill so fast. But yeah, it was him. I didn’t even have to ask him, it couldn’t have been anything else."  
    Stiles sat on the bed, processing everything, before he went for his own shower. Derek sat down beside him, setting the pair of sweats on the pillow, and put his hand on his back again. It was nice, felt so nice.  
    “Are you OK, Shrimp? What did he really say to you?"  
    “Nothing important, really. Just mouthing off. Peacocking. Stupid gumbo-slurping crawdad." Then he remembered something he’d been meaning to ask Derek. Something he’d forgotten entirely since the incident at the house. “Derek, what’s an Alpha? He called that thing at the house an Alpha. He called himself a Beta. I’ve heard those words used before but I don’t know what they mean to werewolves."  
    “Ah, I guess I never explained that."  
    “You never explained a lot," Stiles said accusingly.  
    “I’m explaining now. I’ll explain anything you want me to. You deserve it. You deserved it from the start but I was too caught up in my own particular brand of self-serving bullshit to realize it." Stiles took a chance and leaned into him, trying to wordlessly convey that he understood, and to his complete glee the hand that was on his back snaked around him till the entire arm was around his waist. He listened and tried not to interrupt, fascinated.  
    “There’s a sort of social order that we keep. An Alpha is the top of the pecking order, the leader of the pack. They’re stronger and faster by nature, and their bite is less likely to kill if their intent is to turn someone and not just tear them apart. The bite can kill a person even if they survive the attack. They don’t always turn. More often than not they die, and it’s not a quick death. Something in our blood and saliva - most of our bodily fluids - is very toxic to human beings. More than likely the shock of your bodies trying to cope with the coming of the shift kills you. More than likely it’s just a matter of individual fortitude. But a bite from an Alpha makes the chance of coming through and becoming a one of us much greater.  
    “When an Alpha transforms they can assume three shapes. First is just the normal wolf skin, what you’ve seen on Scott and I. Just a little exaggeration of our human features - some extra hair, sharper teeth, stronger jaws, claws. I think the claws are a sort of evolutionary throwback. Neither canines or simians have claws, at least not like a werewolf’s claws. You’ve seen them, our claws are more like something you’d see on a big cat, a lion or a tiger, except they don’t retract to retain their sharpness because we shed them and they grow back. And when they shed the particles are so fine they just scatter. It’s why you’ll never hear of a biologist picking a werewolf claw off a forest floor somewhere. I don’t know if I could guess at any scientific explanation for the teeth. They grow and they shrink. All there is to it as far as I’m concerned. Guess they don’t call it ‘supernatural’ for nothing.  
    “The second form is what you saw at the house, what attacked Scott. An Alpha prime. Their skeletal structure and musculature more closely resembles that of an animal than a man or woman, and they obviously grow much more hair. And the muzzle. The muzzle makes for a much more powerful bite, and they have a thicker neck for ripping. But they’re still human enough to walk on two legs if they should desire." Stiles shuddered at the memory, that black monster rising to its feet. “They keep the opposable thumbs though they can move considerably faster on four legs than a Beta or an Omega - I’ll explain those in a minute, they’re a lot easier to explain - and their claws are much deadlier, not that they need the claws on top of everything else. They grow a tail, too. That’s part of the whole running on four legs thing, for balance. Basically just a walking fortress of points and hair and muscle. An actual killing machine.  
    “The third form is something you almost never see, a form only a few werewolves in the history of our species have ever been able to assume as far as I know. Powerful ones, the most powerful out of all of us. Even the ones who have been able to achieve this evolved state can’t say for certain how they were able to reach that peak. Maybe it’s even different for one from the other, I don’t know. My mother didn’t know and she was one, an evolved Alpha. She’d been able to take that form since she was a young woman, even before she had me or the girls."  
    “And what form is that?" asked Stiles, enthralled. Girls. Plural. Derek had two sisters, there had been two Hale girls on the file in his dad’s desk. Could the second have been this Cora, this baby girl? It wasn’t the right time to talk about it. Not tonight.  
    “A wolf, just a wolf. A true wolf, only bigger. Huge. A gray wolf in nature can probably only reach just under a hundred-and-fifty pounds when fully grown. An evolved Alpha stands maybe half a foot taller at the shoulder than the second form on all fours, the Alpha prime. And they’re more powerful in buckets and spades. I never saw my mother in a fight, but Uncle Peter used to just whistle when we’d ask about it."  
    “Your uncle," said Stiles. “You never mentioned him till earlier."  
    Derek swallowed somberly. “Not much to say about the poor guy. He survived but he didn’t. I don’t talk about him because he’s not really my Uncle Peter anymore. The burns healed. His mind never came back, though. Something inside him just broke, watching everyone die. Watching that happen to all the children, not being able to save them. He loved the children so much. He just broke. He’s been hooked up to machines with feeding tubes ever since." Stiles put his arm around Derek too and pulled as close as he could, sensing the emotion in his voice. “Dempsey is going to try to heal him. I know he is. Who knows? With all this enormous new power maybe he’ll be able to reach him where I couldn’t. Maybe he still is a healer in there somewhere. He’ll do it for Peter, he’ll try. They loved each other. They were thick as thieves. I hope he’ll be able to do something for him."  
    “I do too," Stiles said. “He can damn well put some of that magick malarkey to good use instead of playing Satan’s Little Helper." Derek laughed at that and Stiles nudged his arm with his nose. His skin smelled fresh and clean. So nice. Stiles had been getting used to the scent of clove cigarettes, though. He was almost sure that’s what the smell on him had been. “So, Betas and Omegas?"  
    “Right. Betas would be what I am. What Scott and Dempsey are. We can only assume the one form, and in a fight against an Alpha we’re pretty much useless unless we’re in a group of more than five together. Well, except for Dempsey, but not all of us have the luxury of selling our souls in exchange for the power to blow up houses. We’re pretty standard fare, teeth and claws. Strength and speed. Enhanced vision, smell, all that good stuff. Old news to you at this point. Betas form the bulk of the pack itself under the Alpha. In civilized packs they defer to the Alpha’s wisdom and seek their guidance and judgment."  
    “And in uncivilized ones?"  
    “They kill what and when the Alpha tells them to kill, eat when the Alpha tells them to eat, and mate when the Alpha allows them to mate. Little more than animals. I don’t know how many wild packs like that exist out in the world anymore. I don’t know how they could. And Omegas are just Betas without a pack. They’ve either been bitten by an Alpha and somehow survived the attack when they were supposed to have ended up as puppy chow and came into the wolf skin alone, without guidance, or they’ve been jettisoned from their pack. They’re vagrants. They live on the edges of both worlds, between werewolves and humankind, but it’s usually difficult for them to integrate into either world.  
    “It’s a pretty loose system and we don’t adhere to strict pack structure like real wolves when we congregate, at least not those of us who are civilized. If we ever congregate. There aren’t very many of us left of any sort. But take my family. My mother was an Alpha and it just turned out that my sister Laura became one too. Sometimes a Beta through sheer strength of self can become an Alpha even if they aren’t born one. It’s rare that anyone is born one. My sister Laura was... She was an exceptional person. But there was never any competition for control of the pack between my mother and her the way you would see with wild wolves. They fought about things like money and where Laura was going to go away to college but not much else. We all just lived in peace under one roof together, one big extended family.  
    “And then there’s the transference of power. That’s another thing the triskelion means; Alpha, Beta, and Omega. Power feeding power, a neverending spiral. An Omega can become a Beta again by being accepted into a new pack and in turn a Beta or an Omega can become an Alpha by killing an Alpha. By taking something from them called a spark, something that... I don’t know how to explain it. When you become an Alpha this thing, this spark, latches onto something inside of you - your soul, maybe - and it changes you. In people like my sister it just sort of... Appears one day, like growing a new limb that makes the rest of you exponentially stronger in turn."  
    “...that’s why that thing out there killed your sister."  
    “Right again. To take the spark from her, to take her power."  
    “God...” Stiles breathed. “I’m so sorry. I can’t imagine."  
    Derek clenched his arm around him. “He’ll pay. I’m glad Dempsey didn’t kill him. He’s mine."  
    “So..." Stiles said, doing the math in his head. “Since you don’t have an Alpha yourself anymore... Since your entire pack’s been gone all this time, wouldn’t that make you an Omega? Scott and Dempsey too? Unless the three of you could be a pack yourselves. Can there be a pack without an Alpha?"  
    Derek actually seemed inquisitional about that. “Huh... You know... You know I never really thought of it that way. I don’t know. I guess we are just Omegas now."  
    “But that’s why the Alpha bit Scott, isn’t it? He wants Betas. He wants a pack."  
    “Precisely. Probably why he’s been hanging around my property too. Why I need to hunt him down and bleed him like a stuck pig as soon as I can. I don’t have anyone left so he thinks I’ll be more susceptible, more open to joining his pack. More desperate. But Scott? He has people. And that bastard’s either going to start attacking those people as well to turn them or kill them so that Scott has nowhere else to go. His family, his friends. You." Derek looked down at Stiles fiercely. “He’ll come for you, without a doubt. He’s seen you with Scott twice now, he’s scented you. You’re marked already, he’ll come for you first. So before he gets a chance to recover fully from the brimstone and hellfire that Dempsey rained down on him I’m going to find out where he’s hiding his stinking face and bite his head right off. He isn’t going to take you, too. If he makes himself a sea of soldiers I’ll kill my way through every single one of them one by one before I let him take you, too."  
    Stiles was a little stunned. Well, more than a little. “This might not mean anything since nobody’s ever said anything romantic to me before, but that’s literally the most romantic thing I’ve ever heard in my life. Considering the fact that you just said it takes five of you little guys to take down something like that."  
    Derek chuckled. “You’re a twisted little fuck, you know that?"  
    “Had a t-shirt made. One more question, and if I’m prying too much then let me know and we can just drop it. It’s probably too much."  
    “I told you, Shrimp. I’ll explain anything you want me to. You can explain this all to Scott tomorrow, too."  
    “Oh, fuck," Stiles groaned. “School. How am I going to manage school after all this?" He looked at his watch. Only just past ten-thirty PM.  
    “Last day of the week, Shrimp. You’re tough, you’ll make it," Derek said, then he actually pecked Stiles on the forehead right below the hairline and Stiles felt his entire face glow. He forgot he had a fractured wrist and that he hadn't slept in two days. “Sorry, didn’t mean to do that."  
    “No, no. It was good. It was nice. It was so nice. Please feel free to do it as often as you’re inspired to."  
    “What was your last question?"  
    “...do you know who killed your family?"  
    “...oh..."  
    “Sorry, like I said if it’s too much just tell me." It was, it was obviously too much. “Sorry. I’m a snoop. I go through my dad’s papers all the time. It wasn’t an accident, it was arson. Really carefully planned and executed arson. My dad’s notes said it had to have been carried out by experts. So someone knew about you guys, obviously. It couldn’t have just been a coincidence that someone decided to burn down a house full of werewolves. But how do you even do that to a family of werewolves while they’re all still in the house? Wouldn’t they all have heard what was happening? Smelled the propellant? Couldn’t they have just burst outside and ripped the arsonists to shreds?"  
    Derek seemed to be fighting with himself about the answer, then said, “That’s a conversation I’m going to have with you and Scott together."  
    Stiles looked up at him and furrowed his brow, perplexed. “Scott? What does Scott have to do with... What does that mean?" But the dark man kissed his forehead again and he forgot why it was important.  
    “Tomorrow. I promise. I’ll come see you after school. Or maybe you should come see me, I can’t really come see you at your place."  
    “Derek, my dad isn’t going to shoot you in the balls. I hope."  
    “The age of consent in California is eighteen, Stiles. I feel like I’m doing something wrong just sitting here with you. And I really like my balls. I even use them once in a while. Not often, but once in a while."  
    “If it helps, I’m turning seventeen in two weeks." Stiles grinned cheekily at him.  
    “Seventeen isn’t eighteen, Shrimp. I don’t want my picture being distributed door to door on one of those sexual predator alert cards."  
    Oh...  
    Stiles’ heart sank in his chest. He felt himself go a little hollow in the gut. “So... When you said I could stay tonight... Did you mean just tonight?"  
    Derek looked down at him with a pained expression. Oh, no, he thought. I just fucked this up, didn’t I? I should have just dropped it, I’m here with him now. Why am I looking a gift horse in the mouth? Damn it, I just fucked this up. Am I actually going to start to cry? Oh, God, am I crying? Stop it, stop it. Goddamn crybaby, not in front of him. Push it down, put it away. “I’m sorry. Fuck. Forget I even asked. Stupid, really stupid. I didn’t mean to be all... Sorry. I don’t know what I was expecting."  
    But a wide-eyed panic was spreading across Derek's face. “Oh, no, Shrimp. Don’t cry. Please don’t cry." He could tell. Of course he could tell. Stiles hadn’t actually begun to cry but with all his enhanced senses Derek could obviously tell right away what was about to occur. “I don’t do well with people crying, I don’t know how to handle it."  
    “I’m not going to cry, promise. Forget I said anything. Please, forget I said anything. We’ll just stop at ‘conversation you’re going to have with me and Scott together,' and forget anything happened after that. Did not get weird at all. So stupid. Don’t feel bad, that was all me."  
    But Derek was a stammering mess. “Stiles, please don’t cry. Oh, God, you’re doing it. You’re doing it. I’m so sorry, please don’t... What do I do? What can I do? I’m a fuck-up, you didn’t do anything wrong. I fucked up, I fucked up so bad. What can I do? Do you want to hit me with your car again? Would that make you feel better? You can hit me with your car again. You can do donuts over me, we can go out and do that right now. You can tase me till I throw up my spleen. Stiles, please don’t cry."  
    “I’m fine," Stiles said, as convincingly as he could. He had shed a single fat teardrop but he was looking down now so Derek couldn’t see it. Fat load of good that did. “I’m just going to take a shower now and we’ll forget the last five minutes even happened. Like, I think that would be the best thing for all parties involved. We’ll just forget it happened, OK?"  
    “Stiles... I don’t know what to do. I really do like you. I do. I just met you and I like you, so much. This never happens. I hate people on principle most of the time. And I have a lot on my plate right now. Sorry, that sounded like an excuse. It wasn’t. I’m trying to be honest with myself and with you. Apparently it’s not something I do very often. I like you and I don’t know what to do."  
    Stiles only nodded. He began to get up and the feeling of Derek’s arm sliding off from around his middle didn’t do anything to keep him emotionally stable. But he held it together as well as he could and collected his own sweats before he started for the bathroom.  
    Then he remembered something.  
    He sniffed and wiped his nose before he said it. Oh, yeah, that was really fucking attractive. Like it mattered. “OK, I’m about to make this ten times weirder because apparently I just can’t let a good thing be a good thing but I’m really curious... How did you get my phone number?"  
    Derek’s mouth opened. It just sort of hung open.  
    “I mean, I’m not mad or anything. God, please don’t think I’m mad or weirded out or anything. I was going to give it to you anyway, I was obviously going to give it to you. I was dying to give it to you, and now I have yours too. I was just wondering because - you know - when you were listening to me outside..."  
    “I, uh..." Derek cleared his throat. “To be completely honest with you? OK, where to start that thread... I... Have... Been living under a rock in the Mojave desert for the last six months." OK, that was... Not what Stiles had expected to hear.  
    “And in that time, like I said, I’ve been chowing on the local cuisine in form of things that still wriggle a bit when I swallow. OK, that may have been a bit much. I may have overshared. I see that now. Moving on. I didn’t see another person the entire time. And that’s just sort of how I’ve been living the last few years. I’d hit a town every now and then and check into a motel for a few weeks then I’d just go out into the wilds and be alone for months and months. And as you know, people as well as wolves are - well, we’re social animals. And going without contact for that long can sort of... Erode your sense of... Boundary? Is that the word I’m looking for? Might not be the right word. Boundary makes it sound... Maybe just... Social grace in general? Common ethics? Anyway... It just sort of became ingrained in me for awhile to just... Take things when I wanted them or needed them. Need a bite to eat? Stick your arm into a fennec’s den and pull when it bites. Need a drink? Follow a conga line of ants to the dry riverbed where they’re burrowing and dig until you hit a spring, or find the right kind of barrel cactus and squeeze the fibers into your mouth. So when we first came in, while you were using the bathroom before I showered, I saw that you’d left your phone on the bed. And I need you to understand without a doubt that I was not doing anything remotely creepy with it." Stiles actually raised an eyebrow at that.  
    “It’s just I only just got my phone and I’ve never had one of these weird little smartphones and I couldn’t believe the stupid waterproof case actually worked and it still worked after Scott dropped it. OK, that doesn’t have anything to do with anything. Once again, nothing creepy, I didn’t look at a single picture or a single text. Oh, fuck me, I wish you could scent me or something so you’d know I’m telling the truth. I just had a peek at your number in your Settings and put it in my phone because I didn’t know how I was going to easily contact you if I needed to or... Or wanted to, because obviously I can’t just come knock on your door and go, ‘Hi, Sheriff! It’s the guy you once arrested for underage consumption while driving with an open container in my cup holder and also the guy you just brought in again on a homicide charge although obviously I did not do that. Remember, you also offered to help me buy a house in town and invited me to come bowling with you and your sixteen-year-old son who I spent the night with in a dirty motel by the freeway? Yeah, that son. The one who wants to date me - a twenty-five-year-old man - even though I occasionally get fleas which is a whole ‘nother story, Sheriff. Can Stiles come out and play, by any chance?’ And I’m getting away from my point here again." But Stiles was smiling now. He was smiling from ear to ear.  
    “So I just sort of stole your number and turned your screen off immediately. I cannot stress enough that I turned it off immediately and I knew I was doing something wrong but at the same time the parts of me that were still living under that rock out in the Mojave desert just saw something I wanted so I just took it because I’m a bad, bad man who has no idea how to be a person because, once again - desert, rock. You get the picture. And when I heard you talking to Dempsey by the car I sort of just lost my shit and I didn’t know what to do when you said to just give you five minutes because I didn’t want to do an Edward Cullen thing. But I was so scared he was going to hurt you or say something unforgiveable to you and I wasn’t thinking so I just whipped out my phone and sort of maniacally texted you in a complete fugue state. I’ve sort of been hoping you would’ve forgotten about it this entire time which was probably stupider than actually doing it in the first place."  
    This. Dumb. Fucking. Rock-faced. Adorable. God. Damn. Loser.  
    “Do you? Get the picture, that is? Please say you get the picture, you’re making a very strange face." Stiles was grinning so wide it hurt. “What do I have to do to get you to stop doing that? You’re making me incredibly uneasy. Like, I can’t even scent you. Your emotions are all over the place. It’s really bizarre. Shrimp? Stiles?"  
    Stiles kissed him. He did it without ceremony, without warning, and without remorse. He just leaned in before Derek could protest and laid one on him. It wasn’t one of those sloppy, tongue-choking first kisses you see in movies. He didn’t linger for longer than decency would have called for, but he did linger a bit. He didn’t use his tongue but he did open and close his mouth just a bit to enjoy the wet intimacy of their lips smacking together in tandem, because he realized that Derek had begun to kiss him back almost immediately. Almost the second their lips touched. His first kiss and he’d never in a million years imagined it could be this good, that this guy could taste this good and smell this good. This guy who he’d swore to that he didn’t have to kiss him. He just stole it anyway and he wouldn’t have regretted it if he died the moment after it was over. He’d never understood what it meant to have butterflies but he felt them now, flurrying in his stomach. Making him weak. He felt them the moment he heard Derek inhale deep and contentedly through his flaring nostrils and make a short sound that was a decibel higher in pitch than his speaking voice. Almost a whimper.  
    Stiles was exhilerant. His first kiss. Fucking home run, hole in one, dunk shot clutching the rim, knocked it out of the fucking park, and all those other stupid sports terms for generally kicking ass.  
    Stiles was the one who broke the roaming, frantic contact. Derek actually looked up at him pleadingly the second it was done, like he hated himself but didn’t care anymore. Stiles put his hand on Derek’s face and turned it to the side, just enough to lean in toward his ears which were burning bright crimson and whisper; “Now, that was an Edward Cullen thing. Doing things a stalker does then telling me that you can’t read my mind? That was an Edward Cullen thing."  
    “That wasn’t very nice."  
    “It wasn’t very nice of me to do," Stiles retorted. “But it was very nice. And it was completely PG." Don’t look at his lap. Still wearing just a towel. Now you're the one without any secrets, Derek Hale. “I can live with PG. All my dad can do with a little PG smooch is shoot you in your... Face. Moving on. Did he really do that? Did my dad really offer to help you find a house? And to take you bowling with us? That’s a good thing, right? We haven’t gone bowling in ages. I mean, maybe we can ease our way into this with that."  
    “Stiles..."  
    “Yeah, no. I don’t really see it, either. Do you really get fleas?"  
    “Desert. Rock."  
    Stiles snapped his fingers and made them into guns. Took aim at the dark man on the bed. Pew, pew. “Loud and clear. Oh." He turned once again before he opened the bathroom door. He felt fantastic. He felt lighter than air. “One more thing. Last thing, I swear."  
    “You’re going to kill me, I hope you know that." Now that was just the thing between his legs talking. Nope, no secrets at all, Derek Hale. Except for one. Just the one. But not tonight.  
    “Does this mean anything to you? ‘What have the Free People to do with a man’s cub?'"  
    Derek looked at him for a moment, astonished, then rolled his eyes so wide his pupils disappeared. “Dempsey."  
    “Somebody tell the man what he’s won."  
    “What I’ve won is a headache. You know how hard it is to give a headache to someone with a healing factor?" Derek rubbed his forehead with his index finger and thumb and sighed before he began to speak again. “My mom used to read Kipling to us before bedtime. You ever read The Jungle Book?"  
    “In school when I was really young. Like, really young. I liked Riki-Tiki-Tavi because it was fun to say. Riki-Tiki-Tavi. Used to drive my dad crazy."  
    “Well, if you can remember, this little human boy runs into a wolf’s den while being chased by a tiger named Shere Khan."  
    “I know what the tiger’s name is, I’ve seen the movie," Stiles said. Derek rolled his eyes again. “Who hasn’t seen the movie? And the boy’s name is Mowgli."  
    “Well, the book’s a little different. But yeah, the wolf mother Raksha decides to raise him and name him Mowgli. Kipling said it means ‘frog’ because the wolves thought the boy looked like a little frog but he just made that up. It doesn’t mean anything in Hindi. What? Why are you looking at me like that?"  
    Stiles sniggered. “I just would never have guessed you were such a nerd. It’s really hot."  
    “I think it’s really hot when you let me finish. That came out wrong... So did that. Anyway. Shere Khan is standing in the entrance to Raksha and Akela’s den - “  
    “Akela," said Stiles. “Like the Akeela Creek?"  
    Derek nodded. “My family’s been in the area awhile. Since there were wild wolves in California. The town named the creek for the wolves, because there were always wolves on our property. Surprise. But like I was saying, Shere Khan is commanding the wolf mother and father to give up Mowgli. They refuse because they’ve fallen in love with the kid in two seconds. Raksha the mother goes, ‘How little! How naked, and -- how bold! ...he is taking his meal with the others. And so this is a man’s cub. Now, was there ever a wolf that could boast of a man’s cub among her children?'  
    “Then Akela the father says, ‘He is altogether without hair, and I could kill him with a touch of my foot. But see, he looks up and is not afraid.’ So they’re both amazed and entranced by this fragile little human child and refuse to give him to the tiger. Raksha goes into a rage when Shere Khan demands it; ‘The man’s cub is mine... Mine to me! He shall not be killed. He shall live to run with the Pack and to hunt with the Pack; and in the end, look you, hunter of little naked cubs -- frog-eater -- fish killer, he shall hunt thee!’ Like she’s speaking a prophecy or laying down a curse.  
    “Guess what the tiger says when they won’t give him the little human boy?"  
    Stiles nodded, understanding. “‘What have the Free People to do with a man’s cub?’ The Free People are the wolves?"  
    “Somebody tell the man what he’s won,” Derek said. “One of the wolves at the Pack Meeting at Council Rock later repeats what the tiger said when Akela takes Mowgli there to introduce him to the Pack. Which begs the question of which my idiot ex thinks he is; the wolf who wondered why he should deign to run and hunt with a man’s cub, or the tiger who swore to one day kill and eat him?"  
    “I’m guessing the book doesn’t end the way the movie does, where Mowgli ties the burning stick to the end of the tiger’s tail and he runs away screaming."  
    “Not quite. It’s split into a bunch of little stories, and in the story where Mowgli defeats Shere Khan it’s a little darker." Stiles was actually enjoying this. He was going to pick up The Jungle Book the first chance he got. “Mowgli traps him in a canyon and he and his wolf-brother start a stampede of buffalo. They trample the tiger and Mowgli skins him like he’d sworn to do in an earlier story.  
    Stiles beamed again. “Then I hope he thinks he’s the tiger. Stupid crawdad. Stupid Frog-Eater. I could use a nice rug for my room."  
    The shower was just what he’d needed. He needed to wash the stench of all that dark magick off his skin. Stiles almost imagined he could smell it as well as any wolf, the stink of evil. Of hatred. The hot water pummeled it from his shoulders and melted it from his face along with the fine layer of sweat and grease that had collected on his forehead and in the sides of his nose. He felt new in the water. New in his sudden joy, his triumph. Even as the water ran hot over his tongue he could taste the dark man there, that savory breath that was nearly rank with the night’s misfortunes yet somehow so delicious.  
    His first kiss, better than the movies. Raw, sudden, thoughtless. Not at all sterile or forced like in the movies. Definitely not sterile. The dark man’s breath had been redolent, bordering on offensive. But God, he’d still tasted so good. How could that be? It was better than waiting for it, better than begging for it. Stiles could feel a timbre in the tips of his fingers, like a fine electrical current. It was prickling up from his knuckles and climbing his arms, tingling in his elbows where the joints met and mounting his shoulders which he rolled back and forth under the steaming cataract to loosen them where the drugs had pulled his muscles tight. What was that? Was it joy? Was it happiness, spreading over him like a cloak? Ascending his neck? He wasn’t sure if he knew what that should feel like anymore. And so what if this was just for now? The kiss had killed his tears, the kiss had made him feel fervently in that moment that he did deserve this. That he did deserve to be sixteen and head over heels for somebody. Tomorrow was tomorrow. And when tomorrow came if he was given a new reason to cry then he would steal another kiss from Derek Hale and whatever fresh Hell it was would pale and wither.  
    Turned out Derek was a briefs guy. There was an odorous black pair discarded on the bathroom floor within the dark man’s jeans.  
    When Stiles came back into the room wearing his wrinkled gray sweatpants he saw that Derek had changed into his own pair and was reclining on the nearest side of the bed, one arm raised and cocked behind his head. He was reading something or other on his phone but he set it down when Stiles entered, towel draped around his shoulders.  
    Stiles had never felt more self-conscious about his body, seeing the dark man draped on the headboard. His clothes were predictably pulled tight on Derek’s thighs, and the hems ended halfway up his calves. They didn’t seem particularly uncomfortable, but they were an awkward fit that reminded Stiles how scrawny and soft his own frame was. He thought of the witch and his long legs, his long coffee-colored arms that had been roped with powerful lean muscle under that coat. Stiles had seen them in the parking lot when the witch had been wearing nothing but the tattered gray shirt. He thought about Derek crushing that lean tall young man under him, tank-like, and pressing kisses into his nape. Biting him with greed, bruising him. Stiles felt his ears get hot again.  
    “I know I keep asking if you’re OK..." Derek began, but Stiles shook his head.  
    “It’s nothing. Just getting tired. Don’t think I realized just how tired. Really needed that shower." He can hear my heart, he can smell my doubt.  
    Derek nodded to the empty spot beside him, almost hesitantly. “You coming? Just gonna stand there?" Stiles nodded in return and circled the bed, tossing his towel on the little chair by the door. The room was chilly but his body temperature had risen under the hot water, so the artificial climate being pumped forth from the air conditioner erred on refreshing over glacial.  
    Stiles wasn’t sure just what to do after he slid down onto the hard mattress and pulled the cool clean covers up to his chest. The comforter and sheets smelled faintly of bleach and fabric softener. He wondered if the chemical scent wasn’t unbearable for Derek.  
    As Stiles laid on his back and looked straight up at the sponge-accented ceiling he felt Derek slide under the covers with him, felt the heat of his bare torso join his own. But he didn’t want to look, didn’t have the nerve to look over and see if the huge dark man was looking back at him. Icicles and iron. He didn’t have the mettle to look over into those stunning blue eyes suddenly, so he was eternally grateful when Derek clicked off the lamp and set his phone aside on the nightstand. But of course even if he couldn’t see then Derek could see him. Still, the darkness was soothing. The darkness gave Stiles the guts to turn and face Derek in the bed, wondering if those eyes were fixated on him in the gloom. He thought he could see the glint of them, two tiny spots against the murk. Maybe a foot away from him. He was almost sure Derek had turned onto his side and was looking directly at him. But he wasn’t sure. He didn’t know what to say but he was sure the situation called for something to be said.  
    Instead he swallowed his doubt and inched closer. The heat grew and when he felt Derek’s breath on his forehead, when he smelled the hot acerbic breeze that was the dark man’s life going in and out, he dared a hand on that huge broad chest and a strong hand encircled his in turn. Then Derek lifted Stiles’ hand to his lips in the dark and kissed the back of it gently the same way he had kissed his forehead. Butterflies. Prickling. Electricity. “I really like it when you do that."  
    “I can tell," Derek said. Of course he could. “You want to be the little spoon? Seems only fitting."  
    “Maybe in a bit," Stiles said, his head swimming joyfully at the idea. He slid a foot forward and massaged the dark man's bare calf with his toes. “I like this.” And at that Derek kissed his hand again. “I’m OK with this. It doesn’t have to be any more than this for now. I’m sorry."  
    “For what?"  
    Stiles laughed softly through his nose. “For that awful clingy mess that happened earlier. For being sixteen and stupid and presumptuous. You barely know me. I barely know you. We don’t really know anything about each other at all."  
    Derek replaced Stiles’ hand on his chest and kept his own hand over it, almost possessively. “The things you know about me are enough for most people to run away screaming," he said, and Stiles inched closer still and wove their legs together. “Or run for their torches and pitchforks. The things you know about me were enough for someone else to steal onto my property in the night and kill my family in their beds.” Stiles kissed his neck and he sighed. He tasted so good. He’d been out of the shower just long enough for a fine, nearly imperceptible layer of salt and musk to form on the surface of his warm skin.  
    “And you? I know all I need to know about you." Stiles smiled without thinking when Derek said that, parroting what Stiles himself had said to the witch earlier. He could almost feel the dark man smiling back at him. “All I need to know is that you went to that house to help me rouse my brother even though your entire world had just been broken. Because of me. Because of what I am and because of my mess - the same venom in my teeth - infecting your best friend and breaking his world, too. All I need to know is that you went anyway. And even after what he did? Even after Dempsey woke up and turned into a monster from another plane of existence, even after you saw him do those... Those horrible things, you stood up to him. You looked the Devil in the eye, whatever it is that he’s become. You stood right up to him and you took him down. I saw you do it, you know?" Stiles was surprised at that but he couldn’t think too much on it when they were this close.  
    “I was on the slope overlooking the house, I saw everything. Those birds were driving me out of my mind as much as they were doing to Scott. I thought it was going to kill me. You saved us both. You saved me from him. You saved Scott. You saved me from my naive assumption that after seven years away from home and steeped up to his neck in arcana and blood magick, Dempsey could be anything like who I thought he used to be. Don’t get me wrong, he did his fair share of convincing me of that himself, but after you hit me with the car and put the fear of the thunderbolt into me?" Stiles stiffened in shame at the memory and Derek lifted his hand to kiss it again and soothe him. “After you woke up out of that and I realized just what he’d done to you, twisting your big soft heart into something dangerous and dark - twisted you into something like he’s become - I don’t think I’ve ever been more impressed with someone. You came out of a spell that made you into someone you’re not, some of the most invasive and wrongful kind of magick, and the first thing you did was try to help me stand. You’d just been through Hell. You’d just stared down the Devil on his own turf, and you made him blink.  
    “You amaze me, Stiles." Stiles laughed out loud at that. It was a bit much to say he laughed. He actually giggled. Giggled like an idiot, but apparently that was just fine with the Big Bad Wolf. Derek took his other hand and kissed that too. “I’d like it if you could amaze me and be a year older, but you’re right about one thing.” He turned Stiles bodily with one hand then and Stiles giggled, nearly drunkenly, again as he felt his entire weight spun on the bed as if he weighed nothing at all. And of course, to Derek, he really didn’t weigh a thing. God, how had he ended up here? How could he have ever been so lucky? “This is enough. It doesn’t have to be more than this for now." Then he was moaning in contentment as one of those enormous corded arms encircled his waist from behind and Derek’s hand came to rest on his stomach, pulling him close. He lifted his head when Derek indicated and the other arm went under his head, the hand curling up to toy with his hair. Stiles kissed his wrist and chewed gingerly on the solid flesh of it, pushing his body back against the dark man and reveling at how well their bodies fit together in the bed. At just how much warmth and tenderness could echo out of this man who had been cursing and spitting at the wheel of his car just yesterday. How had he ended up here?  
    How didn’t matter just then, and it didn’t matter in the morning either. Stiles hadn’t slept so well in years.  
  
***  
  
SCHOOL was like a waking dream. It was funny, actually, how surreal it was that he was going to school of all places after what had occurred the night before. From the house to the witch to the birds, right up to hitting a man with his car then spending the night with him. Well, not quite a man. Wolf-man. Werewolf. Was that more than a man or less than? Whatever. Then he was taking Derek with him to school so he could retrieve his sleek black Camaro from the parking lot where it had been waiting since the night he was arrested.  
    Stiles had to stop at home for a change of clothes first, and for the first time in a long time he simply had breakfast - four toaster waffles and a glass of milk with a bowl of strawberries - without chasing it with an Adderall. He didn’t need the kick. He’d slept so damn well. His dad was already at work so he actually convinced Derek to come in for breakfast before they left again, and before he knew it Derek was standing at the stove flipping a four-egg omelet with peppers and smoked salmon over the burner.  
    When Stiles made the comment that neither he or his father ever cooked after Derek bolted down the entire omelet in what seemed like two bites, the dark man hurriedly hid any evidence of his presence in the Sheriff’s house by washing the dishes frantically and putting everything back where it had been. Then he asked Stiles if the Sheriff would notice the food he’d taken from the fridge and Stiles waved him off dismissively. “The man has one day off a week. When food disappears he just assumes it disappeared into me." Stiles stole upstairs then and pulled on a fresh pair of boxers and jeans as well as a bright red hoodie over a clean undershirt, and when he was descending the stairs again Derek was waiting at the foot of them with his car keys in hand.  
    “I can just get the car myself later," Derek said, handing Stiles his keys which he accepted with a peck on the dark man’s cheek which had gone from thickly stubbled to bearded. “You don’t have to show up with me at school."  
    “Oh, please," Stiles said. “What are they going to do? Call my dad?" But the color actually drained from Derek’s face at that. “No, no, no, I so beyond did not mean that."  
    “But would they?" Derek asked apprehensively. “Holy shit, how close is he with your neighbors? You think anybody saw me come in here?"  
    Stiles laughed and strung his fingers into Derek’s, yanking him toward the door. His school bag was still in his car with two days’ worth of unfinished homework packed within. Well, that wasn’t a nice thought. But if he couldn’t scramble through all that in homeroom after single-handedly knocking a telepathic witch-wolf out of a three-story Victorian house then he didn’t deserve to have survived the experience. “What neighbors, Derek?" He parted the lace curtain over the thick glass pane in the front door for Derek to look out at the sparse street beyond where a grove of various local trees obscured the view beyond his mother’s many gardens, which surrounded the house on all sides. Somehow his dad found time still to tend to the gardens with all the work he had on his hands. Stiles made a mental note to start helping him with the gardens more. His mother had kept a little moleskin journal where she penned intimate details on care for every individual plant and flower right down to the correct soil pH and required mulch material. “Nearest neighbor’s about a block’s length in that direction. Can’t even see their house from here. We’re right at the foot of the mountains. Preserve’s in that direction," he pointed.  
    “You can see the tops of the trees from here. We’re right between the preserve and dad’s work, actually. The station. We get deer and raccoons in the backyard almost every night. One time we got a cougar on the back patio and my dad wouldn’t let me outside by myself for weeks after. I was really young. I actually can’t believe I’ve lived this close to you my entire life." And it seemed that thought erased all of Derek’s apprehensions, because he just smiled and put his arms around Stiles’ waist from behind and rocked steadily with him there for a moment before they left and locked the door behind them.  
    It was me who did that, thought Stiles as he padded happily to the jeep. Me who put that smile on his face. If he keeps smiling at me like that then soon last night isn’t going to be enough.  
    “What’re you going to do with your day?" asked Stiles as he pulled recklessly out of the driveway. Translation? You’re spending your day with that greasy crawdad, aren’t you? You should throw him in a pot and serve him with butter and lemon.  
    “I’m going to go to one of the outlets outside of town and get Dempsey some clothes that don’t make him look like a cross between Mad Max and Catwoman," Derek answered. “Then he’s going to want to go back to the house. He won’t wait long. It was hard enough to convince him to wait this long." Derek had knocked on the witch’s door before they left the motel and he had appeared looking fresh and well-rested, his hair re-braided and wearing only his torn jeans. Stiles had made faces at him from the car as they talked sparsely for a few minutes.  
    “Do you think you can convince him to wait till after I’m out of school?” Stiles asked. Derek gave him a questioning look, but it didn’t take him long to comprehend what he meant.  
    “Stiles, you’re not coming with us."  
    “What, you want me to just skip school and go ahead of you? I’ll go wait for you there. You think I won’t? I’ll just walk in fifteen minutes late and sign myself in at the office, then slip out a side door before anyone even sees me. I do it all the time." Derek was regarding him with a raised eyebrow again. Those eyebrows. God. They were so thick and dark, so evocative of everything he was feeling. Derek Hale didn’t wear his heart on his sleeve, he hid it in his eyebrows. “Derek, I’m not letting you go to that house with him alone. What’s going to happen when he puts his hands on everything? Is it what I think is going to happen?"  
    Derek hesitated, then said with an exhale, “Probably. It’ll take him back there, take him back to the fire."  
    “He’s psychometric," said Stiles simply. Derek huffed.  
    “I don’t think I’ve ever heard that word before, so I’ll take your word for it," Derek said. “But it’s not going to just be like he’s standing there watching it happen. He’ll... Feel it. He’ll feel it the way they felt it, all their fear and pain. Take the psychometry - is that what it’s called? Yeah? - and add his empathic abilities to it and it’ll be like he’s dying himself. Right along with my mother and my sister." He hung his head. “I’m scared, Shrimp. OK? And the fact that I can admit that to you should tell you all you need to know about what could happen when he does what I can’t stop him from doing. When he puts himself through that because for some reason he can’t just take my word for it and leave the dead to rest. You’re not coming. If he freaks out again - "  
    “You’ll need backup," Stiles finished for him. He took Derek's hand in his and steered the car deftly with three fingers of his other hand. “I took him last night, I can take him again. I’m not letting you go with him to do that alone. I’m not. You said that what he did last night nearly killed you. I believe it. I saw what it did to Scott. He’s got a screw loose. Probably a couple screws, if I had to guess. So if he does anything like that again? Batter up. I’ll be right there the entire time, I’ll let him know exactly why I’m there too. I’m not afraid of him. OK, that’s a lie. Keep forgetting you can do that. Fine. He scares the shit out of me. Doesn’t mean I’m letting you go alone."  
    “Stiles..."  
    “Derek," Stiles said in return, then he lifted the dark man’s hand and kissed the back of it the way Derek had done his without taking his eyes off the road. “You can’t stop me any more than you can stop him. I told you, I’ll just go wait for you there if you can’t convince him to wait till 3:00 PM. You’re not going to be alone with that monster when he starts up with that voodoo bullshit again. What if he goes ape and brings the rest of the house down on top of you? What was that, even? Do you know what that was? What he did? It looked like telekinesis. He said he learned it from someone. He just said 'people’, didn’t say who. He said he learned it on a mountain, and then later when he was crying on the side of the road he talked about being on a mountain again."  
    Derek shook his head. “I don’t know. Well, I might know. I just don't want to believe it yet. Not till I hear it from him. He’s... I don’t just not know who he is anymore. I don’t know what he is. People aren’t meant to have that kind of power. He went down into the coma when he was trying to help Scott because it was too much for him to hold onto the minds of a few stags and make them do his bidding. Then he wakes up and he can call down... That? Those birds? All those birds? That should have killed him. Seven years ago even trying something like what he did to protect Scott would have killed him. Now it’s like he doesn’t have any limits anymore. He couldn’t read minds before. He could read mine when I was in the wolf skin because we were so close and because I let him, but no one else’s. Now he says he can do it like it’s nothing, he can force his way in and not just read them. Now he can whisper, ‘Come back this way later’, and the man driving the car coming toward us last night just turned his car around. Now he can make things explode with his mind and break the laws of nature itself by offering his blood in payment to the Loa. Except... I don’t know if it was the Loa who he was bleeding for last night. It couldn’t have been. I don’t know what he prays to, anymore. No one was meant to have that kind of power."  
    Stiles considered this quietly for a moment. “Loa. Is that a voodoo word? Is it Creole? He said Loa when he was threatening the Alpha. And he said another name. Marionette something."  
    “The Loa are spirits," Derek explained. “Not gods, but they speak to the Creator on his behalf. A god like the Christian god, who might be the Christian god for all we know. A god I don’t even believe in. But something does answer when he calls. Something. The witch worships - he makes sacrifices, dances, paints symbols, and sings - and the Loa answer. They have different names and he’s called them different things. He’s called them ‘Les Mystéres’ and ‘The Invisible People’. And then when he’s dealing with them he also calls them by their individual names. And they answer. They’ve never failed to answer him." Stiles took heavy stock of how Derek’s brow knit when he said this, how his gigantic hand squeezed Stiles’ own out of what couldn’t be anything but fear. “And the other name? Was it Marinette?" Stiles nodded. “That’ll be Marinette of The Dry Hands. Or Marinette of The Dry Feet. The Skeleton Woman."  
    “The candleholders," Stiles said, remembering, and Derek nodded.  
    “She was a mambo the way he’s a houngan. He never liked to be called a houngan because nobody knows what a houngan is, so I started calling him a witch and that’s where that began. But Marinette was a mambo, a priestess, a witch. A symbol of freedom. She sacrificed a black hog during the first Haitian Revolution when the slaves rose up to take back Saint Dominique. And she protects werewolves, allegedly. It’s alleged that she was a werewolf herself, which would explain how her powers were so vast and infamous. Like I said, Dempsey has such a deep connection to his magick because he was born a werewolf to a werewolf, who in turn was a powerful mambo herself. Power feeds power feeds power, remember? Marinette is special to him. I think she reminds him of his mother, Evangeline. Now that Marinette’s been gone for so long she’s taken on the kind of infamy a Catholic saint would, especially for Dempsey. He sees her as the savior who delivered his people out of bondage. He thinks if it weren’t for Marinette then his mother would have been born in chains, so she is focal to his beliefs. And belief is power when it comes to magick.  
    “He prays to Marinette, he swears by her. And when he’s conjuring he’ll always invoke her name. And again, something answers. Every time. I wonder sometimes if his mother didn’t go to the same place that Marinette went when she died. I wonder if they’re not both among the Loa themselves now. I don’t know," Derek said again, wrapping up the thought as Stiles pulled into the bustling parking lot of Beacon Hills High. “I don’t know anything. I don’t know what he is anymore or what Marinette Bra-Chéch thinks of him and what he’s become. I know what his mother would think. It would break her heart."  
    “You talk about her as if you knew her," Stiles said.  
    “I did," Derek said to his utter astonishment. “I met her. I met her more than once. I told you," he said when Stiles gave him a look that spoke volumes of silent dread. “He would just paint some symbols on the bones and call for Marinette, and for Papa Legba - one of the Loa, the equivalent of Saint Peter in Catholicism - and then he would say his mother’s name, and her mother’s name, and hers before that and so on. He would string together the names of all the women of power in his family, and there were a lot. Whether or not they were werewolves they were all powerful mambos. So when he would call for Marinette and Papa Legba and ask them if he could see his mother the mambo, there she would be. It’s why I think she’s with the Loa now. In Guinee. In Limbo, the place between places. Where Les Mystéres live. Scott’s looking for you. He’s asking around that crowd at the front if anyone’s seen you."  
    “There’s a big shocker, Scott being needy,” Stiles said as he pulled in next to Derek’s Camaro which was parked on the outskirts of the lot, as far away from the building as possible. It was the first time he’d laid eyes on Derek’s car. “Holy shit. You and your ‘Fuck you’ money. Oh, my God. Do you know how much of a turn-on that thing is, Derek Hale? Do you have any idea? Kiss me now." He leaned over the center console.  
    “Stiles," Derek said. "Not the best place. People watching. People wondering who the strange man is in your car. Scott’s coming. He’s heard us."  
    “Oh," said Stiles, grinning at him. “‘Kiss me now’, he heard that? Hey, Scotty. Buddy." He said a little louder. “I have got some shit to tell you. You remember Derek?" He saw Derek listening intently, then wince and hang his head, his forehead in his hands. Like he was in distress. “What? Did he say something? What did he say?"  
    “He said your dad is going to shoot me in the balls.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember how I said these two wouldn't be falling all over each other right away? I'm not sure who the fuck I thought I was kidding.


	6. Monstres

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we meet beautiful trash babies Erica, Boyd, Isaac, and our second original character!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I switched from Abiword to OpenOffice and it seems that's changed the formatting in rich text here yet again. Hopefully this will be the last jarring format change going forward as I don't intend to be changing word programs again anytime soon.

“YOU people seem to make a habit out of wrongful incarceration.”

The olive-skinned boy sitting beside the front counter of the Beacon Hills Sheriff’s Deparment with both wrists handcuffed to the armrest of a heavy maple bench - which was in turn bolted to the floor by two pairs of thick steel screws - sneered up at the Sheriff as they watched the tall dark man sauntering out the double doors at the front. Stillinski ignored him at first, doubling back out the doors like he’d forgotten to tell or give something to the hot guy in the torn leather jacket, then returned and stood with a sigh in the doorway, hands fisted on his hips. He was regarding the boy with what was either profound disappointment or just sheer exhaustion. Either way it was an expression that pried little out of the boy but a long wet tongue extended in derision.

“What was your last name, kid?”

“Kane,” said the boy, who hesitated at first to tell him but knew that the man could just walk ten feet over to the computer behind the counter and look it up for himself. The deputy appeared and nodded at Stillinski in passing as he entered an adjacent room, the only other living soul in the station tonight at the boy’s count other than the two patrolmen who’d brought him in who were having coffee upstairs before hitting the beat again. That made four cops in the building in total, all armed with both tasers and firearms. They had truncheons too, but those weren’t an issue. They were also all at least forty and slow as shit save for the deputy who made up the age gap by being an idiot. And the door was right there.

“And the first name again? Sorry, long couple of days. Patrick? Patton?”

The boy rolled his eyes, one of them bruised darkly down over his cheekbone, and blew his messy black hair out of his face. Goddamn pigs. “Peyton.”

“Peyton,” repeated the Sheriff, and then he picked up a clipboard from atop the counter that was likely adorned with the arrest report as well as the boy’s permanent record. Jesus, he’d been here all of thirty minutes. When had they had time to print all that up? “Well, truth be told Peyton, you’re not exactly officially incarcerated yet. Though we did just open up the only cell in the joint so it looks like you won’t have to go downtown at least. For the moment, anyway.”

Peyton scoffed and tugged a little on the handcuffs dismissively. He turned the thumb of his left hand down and covered the wrist with his right. They weren’t too tight but it was going to be a bit of a challenge. Bit of a tight squeeze. The deputy had seen how small his wrists were and adjusted the cuffs accordingly. Fine, never let it be said that he didn’t like a good challenge. The arresting officers had patted him down head to toe before stuffing him in the squad car and taken the three paperclips fastened to the right pocket of his jeans as well as the knife and six lockpicks in his boot. As an added measure they’d also taken his belt and the laces out of his damn shoes. Fucking pigs.

“Our definitions of incarcerated seem to be a little skewed from each other, Sheriff. And personally I’ll take a nice communal holding cell with seven or eight drunks and murderers over that little canary cage you have in back there. Please take me downtown. I like downtown. Downtown is nice and dirty. There are dicks scratched into every surface of the precinct downtown. Splinters everywhere. You people varnish everything here and it’s starting to creep me out.”

The Sheriff made a little sound of weariness, not looking up from the arrest report. “Peyton Kane. Christ, kid, you’re a year younger than my son. You’re even smaller than my son. How the hell’s a scrawny thing like you put a grown two-hundred-pound man in the hospital? You know Officer Kent’s going to need traction and physical therapy after what you did?”

“He tried to shoot me,” Peyton said, uncaring. “Cry me a river. He would have shot me but he had an eye like a fucking bat in a radio station. How often do you conduct procedural training ‘round these parts, Sheriff? I thought it was only cops in the inner city who’d pull a gun on you that fast. Didn’t think the police out here in Pleasantville would be so trigger-happy.”

Stillinski sighed and flipped to the next page of the report. Man had a weird name. Stillinski. What the fuck kind of name was Stillinski? “Kid, I’ll admit it might have been a little rash on the man’s part to pull his piece on a five-foot-six teenager, but two broken bones is overcompensating. You clearly knew what you were doing more than my officer did, which I’ll take the blame for myself. You can chalk that up to poor regulation till your lawyer goes blue in the gills, but since you’re going to be getting a public defender appointed by the county I doubt it’ll be too much of an issue in the courtroom.”

The boy’s lustrous black eyes flashed with anger. “What, he’s pressing charges? Can police officers even do that when they’re injured on duty?” Just keep playing dumb, he thought to himself. Ham it up. Keep him talking. It was a well-practiced procedure. It was surgery with his hands literally bound. “Isn’t that part of the damn job? I got to tell you - guy - I’ve injured my fair share of cops...” Stillinski actually nodded at that without looking up from the clipboard, almost as if he was impressed. He’d clearly just come across that in the boy’s records himself. “...but not a damn one of them has ever pressed charges. How does that even work? I don’t ever hear of that happening. Does that really happen?”

The Sheriff chuckled and crossed the room slowly, flipping pages as he went. “Officer Kent isn’t going to press charges, kid. The man whose house you broke into in broad daylight is going to press charges. Probably. Haven’t heard anything from him since the initial call from the neighbor.”

“That’s because he’s too busy getting red in the face on bottom-shelf malt and beating on his kid,” Peyton said before he could stop himself. Well, fuck. Now he was in for it. The Sheriff’s eyes rose to meet him with interest.

“You saying you’re personally acquainted with Mr. - ?”

“I don’t know dick about anyone,” Peyton said quickly, but the cat was out of the bag. The Sheriff just nodded again. Damn it, he was getting too close. Strolling much too damn close. What, was he going to sit down on the bench right next to a perp? That was never a good idea even if the boy was cuffed. The Big Buddha gave people teeth for a reason. Unless the old man was a lot sharper than Peyton had given him credit for.

He was. He was going to sit right down on the bench next to the handcuffed boy who was only wearing a pair of jeans that were a little too big for him without his belt and a plain black t-shirt with the sleeves ripped off. By the time they’d gotten him into the station they’d taken his shoes entirely. Fucking pigs. The Sheriff sat down right beside him. Goddamn it.

“Fine by me,” said Stillinski. “You can cut that out, by the way. You aren’t the first perp to try what you’re trying, kid. County voters didn’t give me this badge yesterday.”

Peyton scoffed again, trying to play it off. “I’m not trying dick, Sheriff. I’m not - ”

“Care to show me your other wrist, kid?”

Fuck. What was that stupid thing that Sun Tzu wrote, that quote people were always mangling with unnecessary exposition? "Never underestimate your enemy?"

Looked like Peyton had underestimated the old man just as much as he’d underestimated how keen the neighborhood watch was on that laughable block of suburb purgatory. He sighed in exasperation and looked the other way, admitting defeat.

But he refused to show the old man his left wrist where he’d been pressing his thumbnail into the skin to break it just enough to slick the cuff with a little blood. Just enough to negate friction, just enough to push his left thumb against the pinkie of the same hand and slip himself out of the infuriating restraint. He’d done it before, but it always took a little time. Looked like he was out of time now. The Sheriff was sitting close enough to breathe on him. Close enough to trip him or snatch his arm if he tried to make a break for it.

“Seriously, kid. You don’t know where those cuffs have been. You don’t want an open wound up against those things. Just show me and I’ll get you a little antiseptic and a band-aid for it.”

“I’m good,” Peyton said shortly. He was starting to get really pissed off with this guy. “If I haven’t gotten hepatitis by now it just wasn’t meant to be.”

“Have it your way. Which brings us, by the way,” the Sheriff said, turning another page, “To certain circumstances which could have resulted in you contracting hepatitis. Would you like a test, by the way? I mean, any number of tests? I’ve got an in at Memorial, we can have a nurse in and out of here before we’re even finished booking you. Seems with a record like this you’d want some bloodwork done. When was the last time you had a checkup anywhere? Free clinic, anything? Who gave you the black eye? That’s a hell of a shiner. Even I don’t see many that bad pass through here.”

Peyton snorted. “Spare the county the fees, Sheriff. I doubt your voters would be too happy you’re giving free screenings to homeless delinquents on taxpayer dimes. And I’m not a fucking stool pigeon, before you make any more insinuations. I don’t talk to cops. Not even cops who offer me free healthcare. You could offer me a salary with two weeks’ paid vacation a year and I wouldn’t talk to you.”

“We’re talking now,” said Stillinski with a shrug. “With no witnesses, so nothing goes on record unless you want it to go on record.” What the fuck was this guy’s game? “And hell, as far as salary goes? If you’re as much of a firecracker as I’m reading here you could ace academy on the first try if you horked down a few protein shakes to meet the weight requirement. But you don’t just need to be able to put a man in traction to be in law enforcement. You need brains. And you’re clearly a sharp kid. Articulate if a little foul-mouthed. Kids don’t survive long on the streets if they’re not smart. How long have you been on your own, Peyton? Since your grandmother died?”

“Fuck you, Sheriff. Respectfully. But I guess you did just acknowledge my foul mouth, so I don’t feel too bad about it. I’ll say it again. Fuck. You. I’d rather eat shit than be on your payroll and I’m not telling you dick. Take me downtown.”

Well, that did it.

“That what you want, kid?” the Sheriff asked, putting down the clipboard in his lap for a moment. “You want me to take you down to the 23rd where everybody knows your name and your face? You want me to take you down there so they can book you and toss you into a holding cell with - what was it you said? - seven or eight drunks and murderers for the night because that’s what you’re used to? Because that certain sort of not giving a shit about your well being is just easier for you?”

Peyton flipped him the finger and crossed one leg over the other. “Say what you will about the 23rd precinct, Sheriff, they get shit done without wasting breath on monologuing. What, you think you’re going to - ”

“You’re a year younger than my son, kid,” said the Sheriff, making a motion for the boy to shut up. For some reason he did. Probably because the old man was beginning to sound just a little pissed off himself. “If you were about to go off on some little monologue of your own about how it’s none of my damn business and how I’m not going to make any damn difference by trying to sit down and have a conversation with you like a man instead of just locking you up and throwing away the key? If that’s what you were going to say just now, I have a finite amount of things I can reply with. Least of which is the fact that you are nearly a year younger than my own son, which scares the shit out of me. For you. Kid, it scares me just a little bit that you can be so blasé about a place like the 23rd precinct where kids like you with nowhere to go routinely get their teeth kicked down their throats by men twice their size for the kind of mouth you have on you. It scares me that you sound like you’re way too damn used to it.

“So, you know what? I’m not taking you anywhere. I’m not going to ask you about the underground fighting ring that you so obviously know nothing about, and I’m not going to ask you how you came across the twenty-five-hundred dollars that was sewn into the lining of your boots. I’m not going to ask why you broke into Jebediah Lahey’s house when you clearly weren’t looking to rob the place because that’s probably more a question for your public defender in the entire twenty minutes they’ll get to prepare before your trial. I’m not going to ask you how you know the man or know anything about the way he treats his son, although don’t think I’ll forget that. I’m not even going to ask you where you usually sleep at night.

“What I’m going to tell you though, Peyton? What I’m going to tell you is that you’re not going downtown tonight. Not until we get some actual charges against you by either the county or the victim, and even then you have a chance to make bail before we take you down to the 23rd. If you can make bail which for some reason I’m assuming you will have no problem doing with a single phone call after you talk to the judge in two days, this office will extend you a decency that I guarantee you the boys in blue down at the 23rd will not. We will release you on bail with an ankle monitor even though you have no listed address and have somehow managed to expunge your parents’ names from your record. We will keep tabs on you via GPS and make sure you make your court date and even arrange transport for you to speak to a real lawyer if you can afford one. Again, somehow I think you’ll be able to hock up the change somehow. A homeless kid gets brought into my station with over two-thousand dollars sewn into his shoes I assume he’s got more lying around under a rock somewhere. More power to you, I’d evade taxes too if I could.

“Either way, nobody’s making this easy on you tonight, kid. You’re not going downtown where everybody knows your damn name. Bed in our cell’s not the comfiest place in the world to lay your head but it’s got two pillows and a blanket and it’s a hell of a lot better than a park bench or whatever cold slab you’d be sleeping on downtown with half a dozen predators sitting against the walls around you waiting for you to nod off.”

But that was all the Sheriff could manage before the double doors at the front opened again.

A breathless, tall young man with sallow skin and tightly curled chestnut blond hair stumbled over the threshold. He was wearing a fitted blue ribbed sweater and simple beige slacks on his awkward, slightly hunched frame, his water-blue eyes turned down in dismay at the sight of the boy handcuffed to the bench beside the Sheriff.

“Isaac!?” Peyton strained against his bonds again.

“Oh, jeez,” said the young man at the door who immediately ambled, a little clumsily, across the thinly carpeted vestibule. “Oh, baby, you really did it this time didn’t you? Oh, God, what did they do to you?” He bent and put his hand on Peyton’s face, barely brushing the black eye. He turned to the Sheriff a little fearfully, but his fury at seeing the black eye overrode his usual reticence. “Sheriff, what did they do to him? Oh, babe, your face.”

Peyton shook off his concerns. “I’ve had worse. You’ve seen me with worse.” And then it was time for Sheriff Stillinski to throw up his hands.

“And let’s go back on record for just a moment so I can tell you that he already had the black eye when the officer who he put in the ER with his bare hands found him breaking into... I’m guessing it was your house? Off the record now. Your dad’s house? You’d be Isaac Lahey?”

“That’d be me,” said Isaac as he brushed aside a mop of dangling black locks from Peyton’s forehead. God, those glittering baby blues. Peyton almost melted right out of the cuffs. “Baby, you didn’t need to... You didn’t have to do that. What did you think you were going to do? You put a cop in the hospital?”

“Thinking hasn’t been high on my docket this week, it seems,” Peyton said, leaning into his boyfriend’s hand. When he saw that Isaac couldn’t take his concerned gaze off the black eye, he added, “It’s nothing, sweetie. You should see the other guy.”

Isaac actually smiled at that, a few uncomfortable tears beginning to form in his eyes, and suddenly it was like the Sheriff wasn’t there at all. “Yeah? You win? Of course you won. You never lose.” For fuck‘s sake, thought Peyton. He never cries. I really fucked up this time. I went and made him cry.

“Yeah, I won. Ix-nay about that in front of the ig-pay though, sweets.”

“Kid. Off the record, remember? Save the lies for your lawyer.”

“Doesn’t matter,” said Peyton, not taking his eyes off the adorable, ungainly boy in front of him. Couldn‘t believe he‘d ridden his bike all the way up here. This fucking guy. “Off the record doesn’t mean I need to be giving a cop any more details than he needs to know. I’m only good at fighting and keeping food in my mouth, and I can’t do one without the other. I don’t need a twenty-man raid shutting down my only source of bread.”

“This would be you acknowledging the existence of aforementioned underground fighting ring that you know nothing about?”

“Off the record, naturally,” Peyton said to the Sheriff, and he leaned forward and kissed his boyfriend on the cheek. “Mmm, you’re wearing that cheap cologne I like. But sweets, you got to go. You can’t be here. He’s going to know you’re here. He’s going to come looking for you.”

Isaac shook his head. He was practically beside himself. “I don’t care. I couldn’t even... After I got home from school and I saw all the cop cars and my dad... He’s already drunk. Took him half an hour after the police left. Stomping around the house breaking everything and falling all over himself like a fucking lunatic. He can’t drive, he’ll kill himself if he tries. It’s how I was able to get out in the first place. And I don’t care. I don’t care what he does. But baby, what did you think you were going to do? There wasn’t anything you could have done.”

“I could have pushed a salad fork into his ear until I hit brain matter,” Peyton said without pause, and when his boyfriend made a horrified face he went on to say, “OK, so I went through the silver a little too. It’s not like you would have missed anything.”

“You know I don’t care about that,” Isaac said. “Don’t play dumb. You’re not good at playing dumb with me anymore, Peyton. What did you think you were going to do? You weren’t really going to...”

Peyton raised an eyebrow. “Would you have cared if I did?”

“OK, boys,” the Sheriff cut them off. “This conversation needs to be wrapped up before you say anything so incriminating I can’t keep turning the other way. Isaac?” He put a hand on Isaac’s back and Peyton’s face flushed with anger. “If you need help, son - ”

But Isaac shook his head fiercely and gripped Peyton’s hand. “He’s all the help I need. He’s all I’ve got.”

“Just ‘cause he lives in an upscale white neighborhood doesn’t mean he’s all that hot about talking to cops either, Sheriff. Want to know what happened the last time he tried to tell one of your people what was going on in that house?”

“Hey,” Isaac said, kissing Peyton’s hand and holding it to his cheek. He was trembling. Peyton mouthed the words, ‘I’m sorry’. Isaac went on. “Don’t give him such a hard time, OK? Sheriff’s a good guy.”

Stillinski cocked his head. “Have we met before, son? You don’t go to Beacon Hills, do you?”

Isaac nodded. “I’m in lacrosse with your son.”

“Oh, you know Stiles?” Stiles? Stiles Stillinski? What kind of a sick fuck does that to their kid? “I was under the impression he didn’t have any friends but Scott.”

“You were right about that,” Isaac said, laughing under his breath but not with cruel intent. “If there’s anyone who flies lower under the radar than Stiles, it’s me.” The Sheriff made an awkward little noise of understanding, like an “Ah”, or an “Oh”. But it didn’t stop there. The guy was like one of those teddy bears that tells you “I love you” when you press the button in its paw; the ones that always break and loop the same words over and over in that same hyperactive tone till you gut them for the battery.

“Still, Isaac. I don’t want to pry but it sounds like your friend breaking into your house had something to do with your father. Am I wrong?” Neither boy said anything so he continued. “Look, I have some contacts in Social Services. I can go to my office and get some numbers for you right now. One of them takes calls any time, day or night.”

“Sheriff...” Isaac said, at a loss for words at first. “Well, first of all he’s not my friend. He’s my boyfriend. We’ve been together for a year now.” He said it so proudly. Peyton smiled and kissed his cheek again. “And the last time I called you guys about it they transferred me to an officer who told me it’d be my word against my dad’s if it ever went to court. He said it like there wasn’t any chance of me getting out of there.”

Peyton sighed dramatically before the Sheriff could answer.

“You know what, puppy? Don’t bother arguing with this guy,” he said. “He’s just going to go on a tangent and tell you he’s not going to ask you a bunch of intrusive questions after asking you a bunch of intrusive questions.” He turned to the Sheriff. “I give, guy. If my sweetie says you’re good people you must not be all that bad, as bacon goes.”

“Baby - ”

“Just... Just talk to someone, sweets. Just call one of them. You don’t have to do anything. Just see what your options are. No one’s going to make you do anything you don’t want to do, right?” Peyton turned to Sheriff Stillinski for confirmation. The old man nodded and stood. “Just... Do it for me. If something good can come out of this mess I made then it wasn’t for nothing.”

“I’ll be right back, boys. Just got to dig up the right phone list in my office.”

Isaac took up Stillinski’s seat on the bench and sat there somberly holding hands with Peyton as the Sheriff made his way across the vestibule and disappeared through a door beside the main counter.

The second the door clicked shut the tall pale boy rose and began digging frantically in his pocket.

“And that is what we call Emotional Diversion 101,” he said, grinning sweetly at Peyton. “I can’t believe I’m doing this. I can’t believe we’re doing this.”

“I can believe I’m doing this,” Peyton laughed. “I can’t believe you are.”

He‘d known what was going down the second Isaac appeared in the doorway, his shining knight. They‘d joked about doing this before, promised each other one would come for the other if it ever happened (though in truth it was always going to be Isaac coming for him), but there had never been an opportunity so ripe. The place was all but empty. The Sheriff had just left them completely alone with each other. This was stupid luck in its purest form.

Isaac produced a single safety pin an inch long from his front pocket and hurriedly passed it to Peyton, who opened it and immediately slipped the sharp tip into the keyhole of the cuff on his left wrist. “Did you not think I would come?” asked the taller boy.

Peyton popped the first cuff in less than two seconds and began working on the other as he stood and kissed his boyfriend on the cheek a third time. This fucking guy. Isaac still blushed like a pageboy every time he kissed him, that milky complexion blooming rose pink all the way down to his collarbone. It was too cute for words. “Sweetie, I was just counting the seconds. Tried to get out on my own earlier and meet you halfway but the guy’s smarter than I assumed he’d be. There we go.” The handcuffs clattered to the ugly green carpet and he closed and pocketed the safety pin as he used his other hand to drag his boyfriend toward the door. “Now, for my next trick; let’s disappear. We still meeting Erica? You take your bike and drop to the trail, I’ll hit the trees on the other side of the road. Better if we split up. Meet you at her place in half an hour.”

Isaac laughed. It was as fearless and free as Peyton had ever seen him. “Baby, you can’t run through the woods to Erica’s in half an hour. You’re not wearing shoes. When was the last time you ate?”

Peyton grabbed his hands and recklessly twirled around him once as they rushed out of the lights of the station’s parking lot together. They didn’t stop until they were maybe a quarter mile away, still in sight but far enough to slow down just a bit. He only wished he could see Stillinski‘s face. “Who can think about shoes and eating, Isaac!? Oh, my God. My boyfriend just busted me out of the Sheriff’s station with a disarming aura of innocence and a safety pin. You saved me with your puppy face. Do you have any idea how laid you are getting tonight? Where’s your bike? Bet you I can make it in half an hour. Bet I can beat you there, I feel so fucking good. Feel almost as fucking good as I’m going to make you feel later.” He stood on his toes to kiss him again, long and deep on the lips this time and using his tongue. Isaac moaned in the back of his throat. Peyton loved that he could still get him to make that noise. Then he looked around quickly. He couldn't see shit out here. “Where’s your bike, sweets? You hide it somewhere?”

There was a peal of girlish laughter from somewhere nearby in the darkness.

“Is that... Erica? Erica, is that you?”

“Get in the car, losers!” The voice was saccharine and effeminate. Definitely Erica. But what car? Erica didn’t have a car.

Her faceless emission was followed by a second voice, deeper by two dozen octaves. “Dude, I have to get this thing back to my parents in like, twenty minutes. Let’s go!”

Peyton’s heart soared.

“Boyd!? Oh, my God! You guys!” He saw the bright blue glow of Erica’s phone screen against the pitch black, not fifteen feet from where he was standing.

“Gush on the way, baby,” Isaac said insistently as they raced toward the light. He rushed ahead of Peyton and held open the back door of Vernon Boyd’s mother’s Acura which was parked far out on the shoulder of the road leading from the station.

“Such a gentleman,” Peyton whispered, giving his boyfriend’s ass a suggestive squeeze as he climbed into the backseat. Isaac fell on top of him as he pulled the door shut behind them and Peyton simpered beneath him as they ground their lips together. The fact that they’d thought for just a little while that they might not get to do this again for fuck knew how long spurred them into a frenzied heat. But it didn’t last long.

“Uh, guys?” That was Erica again, swinging her sunshine-blonde head around and staring back at the station. Peyton and Isaac paused their ministrations simultaneously. He could hear just the slightest hint of panic in her voice. “Boyd, you see that?”

“I see it,” Boyd said, turning his own sculpted dark features toward what Peyton could now himself see were lights. Police lights, glaring red and blue. He could see them through the windows from under Isaac. No sirens yet, though. “We’re fucked, aren’t we? Erica, you take your meds today? You good?”

“I’m good,” Erica said, but her voice had climbed an octave. “What do we do? Shit, fuck, what do we do?”

“How close are they? Have they started moving yet?” Peyton immediately grabbed Isaac’s head and pulled him lower in the seat. “Blanket? Nevermind, I found one.” He hurriedly opened the thick black wool blanket that he’d been lying on and pulled it over the both of them as they sank as low as they could into the foot space behind the front seats. Lucky. They were so lucky it was a dark blanket. Maybe they could manage to be lucky a little while longer tonight.

“Just started moving,” said Erica, watching in the side mirror now. “They’re cruising really slow.”

“They don’t think we got far. Good for them. Boyd, get out - ”

“Whoa, man. Really? You want my black ass to get out and talk to the police?”

“Fair point. I apologize. Erica, get out. Boyd, pop the hood. Erica, you know how to prop it open?”

“Mmhmm.”

“Good. Got to be fast. Tell him the battery crapped out. Ask him for a jump.”

Boyd flailed in his seat even as Peyton heard him pop the hood of the car. “Are you insane?”

“No,” Erica said, collecting her hair behind her head and tying it fast as she pushed open her door. “It’s good. It’s solid.”

“She gets it,” Peyton said, disappearing under the blanket entirely and pushing against the back of Boyd’s seat playfully as Isaac stifled a laugh against his neck. Erica shut her door and they heard her flats pattering on the road as she circled to the front of the car. The hood creaked open as the lights drew nearer. “They’ll tell her they don’t have time. They’ll tell her they’ll double back for you guys, but they’ll believe her. I don’t know why she wasn’t my first choice, they’ll definitely believe her before they’d believe you. And no, that was not a race thing. That was a sex thing. They’re going to see a girl fumbling under the hood of a car and their primitive man-brains are going to be all, ‘Ooh, I surely would like to help you miss, just as soon as I’m done running down these here fugitives. That’s right, ma’am, fugitives. From the law. You be careful waiting out here for us to get back, pretty little thing like you.’ They might not even stop. Boyd, your window down?”

“My mom is going to kill me, Peyton.” He said it through gritted teeth.

“Boyd, roll down your damn window so I can hear,” Peyton insisted, and the next second he heard the window slide down. In a hushed tone and only to Isaac, he whispered; “If they ask to search the car, we bust out the other side on three, OK?”

“Baby, we can’t - ”

“Shh, the hell we can’t,” Peyton giggled. Isaac was still smiling. That was a good sign. Peyton would never have thought they’d be in a situation like this together. He’d have never thought Isaac would be so composed, that Isaac would know just how to play off of him in front of the Sheriff back there. He could actually feel Isaac getting a hard-on pressed up against him so tightly. This fucking guy. “They’ll understand, they’re our friends. They don’t want us to get arrested. Again, in my case.”

“What the fuck are you two whispering about back there?” Boyd hissed. The lights were dangerously close. Peyton could see them even from under the dark blanket. “Be quiet. They’re getting out of the car.”

Peyton strained his ears and caught bits and pieces of the conversation that passed between his best friend and the deputy outside.

“...boyfriend’s useless when it comes to stuff like this, but I told him it was probably just the battery...”

“...have to loop back to the station for a jump starter, ‘fraid my cables are frayed. Been meaning to replace ‘em. You wouldn’t have happened to have seen...”

“...anyone. Honey, did you see anyone coming from the Sheriff’s station? I’m so sorry, he locks up when he hasn’t taken his anxiety pills and something like this happens. Honey, did you see...”

“Nope, didn’t see a thing. So dark out here.” Peyton rolled his eyes and he felt Isaac vibrate with laughter against him just slightly. Vernon Boyd wouldn’t be accepting any screen guild awards any time soon. But of course Erica knew that. That was why she’d thrown in that bit about anxiety pills. Everybody underestimated Erica – introverted, wide-eyed Erica - but she was one of the sharpest people Peyton had ever known. She was playing just the right amount of collateral capable and clueless, putting just the right amount of Valley Girl in her inflection. The cops didn’t doubt her for a second. They didn’t even think to search the car.

“...swing back for you kids soon as we do a sweep of the area. Shouldn’t be too long. You just hold tight.”

“...you so much! You are literally saving our lives, thank you!”

Peyton waited till he couldn’t see the flash of their lights through the blanket anymore to throw it off. Erica shut the hood and padded back into her seat as Boyd cut on the headlights, wiping his brow with the length of one forearm. “Now what?” he asked. “We can’t go that way to get home if they’re going to come back this way.”

Erica slapped him gently on the arm as Peyton and Isaac rose into the seat and fell onto each others’ open mouths again without answering. “So pull a u-turn and get on the freeway, blockhead. God, I have to do everything. You boys good back there?”

Peyton moaned a reply around his boyfriend’s delicious salty tongue and she giggled, rolling her window down and untying her hair to let it whip in the wind as Boyd turned the car, grumbling.

“Dude, I don’t know what you were thinking,” Boyd said. “But the next time you get a hankering for a little light breaking and entering don’t do it on Isaac’s block.”

“Seriously,” Erica chimed in, though much more cheerfully. “You’d think you of all people would know better. I bet those yuppies were dialing while you were just walking down the street.”

“Hey,” Peyton said, momentarily breaking away from his steady work gnawing on Isaac’s bottom lip. “Can we just forget the embarrassing fact that I got arrested trying to physically assault a man in his fifties whose eyeballs are yellowing with whiskey-related liver disease and focus on just how amazing this guy here was?” He ran a hand through Isaac’s gorgeous curling hair and tugged it gently. “Because he was fucking amazing. That was gangster, sweetie. That was the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me." Those pouty little lips he’d come to know so well curled up into another heart-shattering smile and Peyton felt himself liquefy beneath him.

“Nah, it wasn’t... I was freaking out the entire time I was walking from the car,” Isaac said, looking distractedly out the window then back down at Peyton, grinning fully now. Sometimes Isaac smiled with just his mouth, but he was beaming out of both glittering blue eyes this time. “You think I’m amazing?”

Peyton pulled him down and kissed him again as he watched the freeway lights banish the darkness over his shoulder. He would never get enough of kissing this boy. This fucking guy. “I don’t think anything, puppy. I know you’re amazing.” He ground up against him a little and Isaac attacked his throat, chewing and sucking on him up and down from his collarbone to the nape of his neck. They were ecstatic together. Peyton had never been so... So enamored with another human being before in his life. Isaac-fucking-Lahey. They’d been together a year but it felt so much longer, not that a year wasn’t long. Especially at their age. He barely heard his friends talking over the radio as the lights whipped by over their heads.

“Hey, can you guys not ejaculate in my mother’s car, please?”

“Wait, Boyd... Boyd, stop. Pull over. What is... What is that?”

“What? What is what?”

“Over there. Over the preserve. You don’t see that? In the sky?”

“What the...? What in the fuck?”

“Pull over. Boyd, stop. What the hell is... Oh, my God.”

 

***

 

 

“TWO days till the Barley Moon.”

That was what Derek had said curtly to Scott when he climbed out of the jeep and unlocked the doors to his Camaro with the push of a button. “You've got two days till your first fever. Enjoy them while you can.”

“Whoa, what fever?” Stiles asked. Stiles who was red-faced and exuberant and covered from head to toe in the dark man's dusty odor. Scott hadn't been able to believe his ears, thought his shocking new sense of smell was playing tricks on his mind. But he'd heard his best friend just fine, picking Stiles' voice out of the multitudes gathering outside the school building - “Kiss me now.” And it wasn't some mistake on Scott's part, some faux pas mixing up the scents as they passed through the air. Stiles and Derek Hale were thoroughly coated in each other. It didn't seem like the vaguely unfamiliar musk of sex, but what did Scott know? “The Barley Moon? Is that really a thing? Full moons are really a thing? He's been changing without a full moon. What fever?”

But Derek shook his head. “Not a real sickness, not like a virus or an infection.” Scott crossed his arms and leaned back on the hood of the jeep, carefully heeding what Derek was telling him. He'd been struck with a cold sweat the moment the word 'fever' came into play. “But there's a reason so many animals go a little bonkers during a full moon. I honestly can't say what that reason is, but it happens. Some of them go into a mating frenzy, some of them get a little more vicious. They make poor, illogical choices. Act against programmed instinct and learned behavior. Pets injure themselves, prey creatures lose their sense of self-preservation and forget to hide or flee, and predators are much more prone to attack anything that moves instead of just singling out weak and sick targets. You can do the research yourself. Documented animal attacks famously rise every month during the full moon. Even coral go a little nuts and begin spewing eggs and sperm into the ocean in gigantic clouds.”

Stiles jabbed a thumb at Derek. “Sperm clouds. Giant nerd, this one. Oh, my God. He's such a nerd, you have no idea.” Scott cocked an eyebrow at his friend's familiar tone with a man he'd just tried to murder the night before. But he conceded that no one could have missed their silent interaction on the road last night, Stiles reaching over to hold Derek's hand like it was something he'd been born to. Derek scoffed in good spirits at Stiles' teasing as if they had known each other their entire lives.

“Let he who doesn't own a Star Wars t-shirt for every day of the week throw the first stone,” Derek said, then turned his attention back to Scott. “The fever can be rough the first few moons. You'll need to be restrained.”

“Whoa, what?” Scott exclaimed. “Restrained? Like, I need to be tied up?”

Derek nodded as if it was nothing. “Not just with rope. You'll need chains.” Chains!? “Thick ones, and a pretty good length of them. I've got what we need. We'll do it together, Stiles and I. We'll do it in the basement of my house. And Shrimp, I know, I heard myself too. If you wolf whistle I'm going to gut you.”

Stiles tapped the side of his jaw innocently with one finger. “I didn't say a thing.”

Derek actually cracked a little smile at him out of the corner of his mouth. Scott wasn't sure he knew how to take this. Any of it, the silent camaraderie between these two that seemed to have bloomed overnight, and the scent. He could swear Derek was avoiding looking him directly in the eye because he knew he could smell them on each other, all over each other. A big part of him wanted to clap his friend on the back and congratulate him for blowing open the closet door – wrong wording, how was he ever going to get that image out of his head? - and the rest of him was filled with a twisting fear.

Scott wasn't sure how he instinctively knew how to catalog the billowing chemical signals and translate them into words. Somehow he just understood what they meant. Affection. Comfort. Jealousy. Longing. Uncertainty. Stiles was crazy about this guy, Scott had called it dead to rights the day before. And Derek... Derek Hale was swimming with confusion but he was rebounding all those other intense feelings right from the pit of his stomach. It wasn't just in their scent, Scott could see it in their posture and in every hurried glance they shot each other before looking away furtively. He knew he hadn't been off the mark when he smelled the vivid attraction between them in the car before Derek went to surrender himself to the Sheriff.

But what did this mean for Stiles? For a moment Scott could hardly bring himself to worry about being lashed down with chains in Derek's basement. What of a fever? So what? His best friend wasn't well known for feats of emotional stability. Was Stiles going to tell his dad? Was he going to come out at school? Did he honestly have anyone to come out to but Scott and Noah Stillinski?

This thing felt volatile. It smelled volatile. Scott didn't know how old Derek was but he'd definitely left sixteen behind awhile ago. Which wasn't to say anything about the fact that he was a werewolf. God, when did just thinking that word become something less than totally maniacal? Nevermind. These two were passing a heated spark back and forth in a tinderbox. To think Stiles had never even given Danny Mãhealani so much as a second look. Danny'd had a crush on him since the seventh grade. Maybe if Scott let that slip then Stiles might begin to... What? What would he do if he knew Jackson-fuckshit-Whittemore's best friend had been secretly pining for him since they'd been knocking each others' teeth out at tetherball? Scott couldn't discount the smell of these two, his best friend and the dark man. Their feelings were as wild and terrifying as the scent of any dark magick. Stiles wasn't going to give a shit what Danny Mãhealani thought of him.

“Is he going to go nuts again?” Stiles asked, looking at Scott with concern. A heated blush climbed Scott's face, remembering his first turning. Remembering losing himself, a curtain falling over his own eyes and the face of a hungry wolf pulling it apart to bear its teeth. He remembered his best friend's face like he was seeing it through the ripples of a pond, eyes tortured with fear and loss. Scott pushed it away for the moment. If he didn't then he was going to cry again. “Is that what you're saying? You never mentioned this last night.”

“I was distracted, sue me,” Derek said offhandedly. Like it was nothing. Scott didn't pry. It took everything he had but he didn't pry. “But yeah, he's going to go a little... A lot... It's going to be bad. Worse then the first time.” Stiles turned his head at Scott, eyes brimming with concern, but Derek spoke to comfort him immediately. “We'll be there, Shrimp. We'll make sure he doesn't hurt himself or anyone else.”

“What about you and Dempsey?” Scott asked, swallowing hard. Worse than the first time? “Isn't it going to happen to you, too?”

Derek shook his head. “We were born in the wolf skin. We've been learning how to manage the fever since we were kids. My mother taught me and his mother taught him. We'll teach you too, Scott. It might take some time but we'll find you an anchor. Dempsey will teach you to meditate.” Stiles flinched at that, just barely. “He's a brilliant spiritualist when he's not going all – you know – Boy Interrupted.”

Stiles coughed. “Try The Shining. Heeeeere's Froggy. Ribbit.”

“An anchor?” Scott inquired. “So what, something that will... What, keep me grounded?” He thought of losing his mind like that again. He prayed these chains were as thick as they needed to be.

“Right,” Derek said. “It could be an object, a place, a memory. More often then not, it's a person.” He was looking right at Stiles when he said it.

“What, me?” said Stiles. “I couldn't even convince him not to try to eat me.”

“Give it a second shot,” said Derek. “When he's bound and harmless. When you have time to sit down with him and try to pierce the fever with the sound of your voice. You're more convincing than you think.” Then there was another fond smile between them and Scott felt like he was intruding on something never meant for someone else's eyes.

“OK,” Scott said. He needed to wrap this up. It wasn't just that they needed to head inside. He was vastly uncomfortable. He wanted to just go pass notes to Allison in homeroom and forget about all of this for a bit. It was all too much. “OK, we'll handle this. We'll cope, right?” Stiles nodded fervently. “We should go.”

The dark man nodded agreement. “So should I.”

Stiles took a step toward Derek. Scott had to turn away, but he knew there was no point trying to get somewhere where he wouldn't hear them. Where he wouldn't be able to smell the emotions in their words. “You'll wait for me?”

Hopefulness. Reservation.

“I can't make any promises, Shrimp.”

Betrayal. Sadness.

“You can promise you'll text me if you go before they let me out of here. You can promise to keep me up to speed.”

Anger. Guilt.

“Stiles...”

“Remember what you said last night? Your particular brand of bullshit?”

Derek said nothing in return.

“Derek, please.”

So much guilt. Derek was drowning in guilt. His pulse had hiked and his breath was shallowing. It wasn't just Stiles who was angry, suddenly. Derek was quickly becoming furious that his guilt was driving him to make some concession he didn't want to make.

“God, you're such an asshole.”

“Stiles, we should go – ” Scott began.

“I don't understand what you expect me to do,” Derek said in return. They'd all but forgotten Scott was there at all. Looked like the spark had hit the tinder already.

Stiles huffed through his teeth. “You could do me the tiniest fucking decency and just text me. Text. Me. It takes two seconds. You could let me help you instead of pulling a Byronic brood-fest and putting your life on the line. The Alpha didn't stand any chance against him, what do you think you're going to do?”

“And what can you do?” Derek shot back. “Stiles, you got lucky last night. You got so lucky. If anything happens to you – ”

“I 'got lucky'!?” Stiles retorted with a laugh. “What happened to, 'Ooh, you looked the Devil in the eye and made him blink'? You selfish prick, you're so full of shit. How do you think I'm going to feel if I come out there later and you're dead on the ground!? You're so fucking selfish.” He was crying now. Scott didn't know what to do, how to interject. He hadn't seen Stiles cry in so long. What the hell were they talking about?

“Stiles... Stiles, please. Just this once, this one fucking time. Just listen to me.” It was like they'd been attached for years, like they were two old souls bound one to the other. So accustomed to each other that they had an immediate answer for every biting thing the other said.

“Derek, I told you I'm not a fucking porcelain doll. I thought... I thought we fucking talked about this.”

“Stiles...”

“No. Stop it. Stop only using my name when you want something from me. When you just want me to shut up and do what you say. If you're going to be like this then fucking call me Shrimp. I just... You fucking prick, I just found you.”

There was a stunned silence on Derek's side. Scott was pretty stunned himself. He didn't think he'd ever heard Stiles be so candid about his feelings. Not without masking it behind some egregious joke. He smelled like desperation, like his heart was breaking. Scott wondered if he'd always smelled like that before Scott had the power to physically discern it or if it had just been these last few days. People had stopped to watch the proceedings from the far end of the parking lot.

“I just found you, you fucker.” Stiles was trying not to break down, his voice wavering and getting smaller and smaller. The anger had dissolved from both of them in seconds. “I just found you.”

“...OK,” Derek said, after an agonizing pause. That was all there was to it. He just relented to... Whatever this was. Scott had given up looking away awhile ago. Derek's face was stricken. “Dammit. OK, Stiles. Just OK. I'm sorry.”

Stiles sniffed and dragged a sleeve across his lip. “OK, what? Are you going to text me? Are you going to let me help you?”

“Yes, OK? I... I promise. I promise,” Derek said, stepping toward him and discreetly taking his hand. The two wolf-men heard a small chorus of hushed whispers from the kids milling around the front of the building at this and Derek let go of Stiles reluctantly. “I won't do this without you. Fine. Jesus Christ, Scott, does he always cry this much? But Stiles. We do this my way. If anything happens, you run when I tell you to run.”

“Oh, for fuck's sake.” Stiles rolled his eyes and poked Scott in the ribs with one long tapering finger as Scott tried to look away again, embarrassed. “You sure you two assholes aren't related?”

“Two days, Scott,” Derek said again as Scott and Stiles hoisted their bags over their shoulders. “The Barley Moon is on Sunday night. And... One more thing.”

“Yeah?”

“...be careful around Allison Argent.”

Scott was momentarily speechless. Stiles made a choked, inquisitive noise. “What... How do you... Derek, what do you mean? Scott, what does he mean?”

“I don't know,” Scott said, his eyes narrowing on Derek. “What the hell do you mean? How do you know about Allison?”

“No time now,” said Derek. “We'll talk before Sunday.”

“No, we'll talk now, Derek,” Scott said, brushing Stiles aside and crossing the distance between himself and Derek in two steps. “What about Allison?” He fought to keep the wolf skin dormant. He felt his teeth grow just a little sharper before he was able to force the impulse down again. “I would never hurt Allison.”

Derek opened his driver's side door and leaned on it, his expression grave. “You don't know anything about her, Scott. I'm not worried about you hurting her. You're still so green – get a hold of yourself before you turn right here again. And just trust me. Trust me when I say she's far more capable of hurting you than you are of hurting her. You couldn't hurt her if you tried, Scott.”

“Derek, you're scaring me,” said Stiles, who had grabbed Scott's arm just below the elbow. But he abandoned that when Scott shook him off so he put his hand on Derek's instead. “How do you... Who the hell is she?”

“She's a sixteen-year-old girl with brown hair and the most beautiful smile I've ever seen,” Scott interrupted angrily. “She smells like lilacs.”

“Scott, just let him talk. Derek, I swear to God, you said you would tell me everything. Does this have to do with the fire? Is this what you wanted to talk to me and Scott about together?”

“Stiles, what the fuck are you talking about?” Scott snapped. He almost imagined he could smell her. Lilacs and soft lisping cotton.

“Scott, just give me a second!” The bell for homeroom rang and neither Scott nor Stiles heeded it at all. “Derek! Look at him! You're not going to make me responsible for this all day. Just tell me something, anything. I don't need the full story. Just tell me who the hell she is or... What the hell she is. Is she a what or a who?”

“She's an Argent,” Derek said flatly. “Stiles, she's dangerous. They're all dangerous.”

“What the fuck am I supposed to do with that? Who are 'they'? Details, anything. This is not the time for your particular brand of bullshit, Derek. Look at him! Scott, claws away now. Now!”

“Say one more thing about her,” Scott hissed, his fingers flexing. “Say one more thing.”

Derek regarded Stiles for a moment, his jaw set and hard though his eyes were soft. As if he was communicating with Stiles through that steely glare alone. Scott smelled the hostility in his skin, but it wasn't directed at Stiles anymore. No, for Stiles all he felt was that bitter fear and keening, shameful affection. He was getting downright pissed off at Scott, though. Pissed off like he had two days before when they'd met in that field a few hundred yards from where they were standing now. Pissed off that Scott was letting his emotions get the better of him and getting so close to shaking the wolf skin right out of his clothes in public again. So what? The students at the front had emptied at the bell. Let this bastard say one more thing about Allison. Just one more thing.

“You won't find anything about them in a book,” Derek said at last, “Or on a website. Anywhere. They've been able to keep their secrets even better than our people through the centuries. They have an upper hand in that. They're only human.”

“What are they called?” Stiles begged. “Just tell me what they call themselves. Give me something.”

But Derek shook his head again. “They don't call themselves anything. They don't have a recorded history even though they pass their traditions from mother and father to son and daughter. History won't ever remember them or a single damn drop of blood they've spilled.”

Blood? Not Allison. Beautiful Allison.

“They're barbarians,” Derek said. Stiles studied him carefully, taking it all in. Scott seethed. “Aristocratic barbarians. They're the reason there are so few of us left.” He had to look away from Stiles then, but Stiles took his face in hand and turned him back. Derek's face was harsh and red with pain. Scott could smell it on him now. Loss. Sorrow. Mourning.

“They... They killed your... They killed them?” Stiles asked. Sympathy. Compassion.

Love.

“They killed them,” Derek said. Scott felt himself deflate, felt his hackles shrink. “It's not right to say that. It was only one of them, only one Argent.”

“Not Allison? No, obviously not Allison. She would've been just a little girl. Sorry, that was stupid,” Stiles said, holding Derek's face like it might break if he removed his hand.

Not Allison. Good. Not Allison. Allison didn't kill people. Allison smelled like lilacs.

Allison wasn't a barbarian.

“Wait... Argent,” Stiles said. “Argent. Silver? Silver paint?”

“An old tincture, used to color coats of arms and shit like that,” Derek responded. Scott listened from behind a veil. It wasn't true. It wasn't true. “From argentum. Pure silver. It's also the French word for silver. People used to think silver purified the blood. And it does in nanoparticle form. It's very good for treating infections. Doesn't do jack shit to purge your blood of werewolf enzymes, though. That was never the point of their name. They never wanted to cure us.”

“Only to... Christ, to hunt you,” Stiles said, incredulous. Scott had to lean on the jeep again to keep himself upright. “They're werewolf hunters? Are you kidding me? Werewolf hunters? How is any of this real? Oh, my God. Derek, this can't be a coincidence. None of this can be a coincidence. Your sister, the Alpha, these people coming to town. The Argents. None of this is a coincidence. Something is happening. Something big.” What the hell was an Alpha?

“Hunters,” Derek said. “That's all they've ever been called, and only by their victims. But you two need to go. We'll talk more later.” He kissed Stiles' hand when he was sure no one could see. “Just... Be careful around Allison Argent. Make sure he's careful.” He turned his chin up to indicate Scott. Scott couldn't bring himself to argue anymore. But he did keep insisting it to himself; it wasn't true. “Make sure he keeps a lid on the wolf skin. Because Allison Argent and her mother and father are only the advance guard. They're only here to keep the turrets warm. They're not the ones who did it. They didn't burn my house down. They didn't mutilate my sister's body after the Alpha killed her to draw me out. But I know who did. She's been through here recently but she went back out to their little compound in Santa Monica, their little artillery nest hidden in plain sight right off the pier. She's the one to fear, even more than Allison Argent's homicidal mother. She doesn't go by their code. She doesn't care if she kills the young or the sick or the innocent. Most of them operate by a simple code of honor, but not her. And she'll be back. She'll bring more of them with her.”

“But it's just you, Dempsey, Scott, and the Alpha,” Stiles said, uncaring that Derek had insisted they go. “You make it sound like they're bringing in an army. And they don't know about Scott. Do they know about Dempsey? I guess they might need an army to take him down.”

“I don't know. We may be the only ones inhabiting this territory, this county. My family's land. By our standards – werewolves – my family owns Beacon County. But beyond, there are others.” Others. Now that was a kick to the balls. “They used to come and go peacefully. There used to be an accord, but ever since my family was murdered the only reason they haven't tried to claim our pack's land is out of respect for my mother. My mother was practically a holy woman. Her wisdom and power reached across all our borders. They respected the hell out of her.

“But that respect only goes so far. She's been gone awhile now, probably long enough in some of their eyes. The Alpha emerging gave the Argents a reason to mobilize. And when word gets out the Argents and their kind are coming into Beacon Hills, there's going to be an army of a different sort following them in.”

Stiles' breath caught. “Holy fuck...”

Scott wondered offhand what an army of werewolves would look like.

Derek looked so battered suddenly. He was looking at Stiles so sadly, his emotions sharp and clear. Concern. Protectiveness.

Love. Love again. Always love when everything else cleared like mist in the wind. Neither of them had to say it out loud. Love, burning bright.

“The Argents have their code, but if this woman – this soulless bitch – can goad our people into striking first? It's going to be a bloodbath, Stiles. Right here in our backyards. Especially when... When Dempsey finds out. He already knows what she did to Mom and our sisters... To everybody, to Peter. But he doesn't know who she is. When Dempsey finds out her name...” Scott was chilled to the bone at the thought. He thought of the birds, their cries cleaving his skull open. Derek's voice was cracking. “I don't know how to stop it, Stiles. I don't know how to keep you safe. I don't care about the hunters and I don't care about my own people anymore. Not if they plan to go against everything my mother ever wanted us to stand for. We're predators. We don't have to be killers. We don't have to give the barbarians a reason to kill us back. We have to be better. I don't care about any of them if all they want to do is kill and kill and kill. But you? Once this begins... If they ever see us together, if Allison Argent ever sees us... I don't know how I'm going to protect you. Or your father.

“I... I have to go. You two have to go. Now.” Defeat. Misery. Regret. The scent was sour, distressful.

Stiles hesitated for a moment, ready to argue. But then he just leaned forward and kissed Derek on the lips quickly. Scott heard their breath escape together like they were a single soul with two bodies. “OK. OK, we'll go. But you have to promise me you'll be careful too. I had no idea it was this... They'll know you've come back by now, won't they? The Argents and these... Other werewolves. You promise me you'll be careful. Promise me right now, Derek.”

“I promise, Stiles. I promise. Now go.”

“And you'll wait for me?”

“I swear, I'll wait for you. Go.”

Love. Why did it smell so much like fire?

 

***

 

THERE was scant news coverage on the phenomena of the birds collecting en masse over the Beacon Hills Preserve the night before. It seemed some paltry natural anomaly being attributed to electromagnetic changes in the Earth's poles paled in comparison to a cold body.

There was a picture of Laura Hale at age twenty-one covering half the front page of the Beacon Observer, the last photo anyone had been able to dig up of her before the Hale house fire. She was an effortlessly pretty young woman, and the family resemblance to Derek was uncanny right down to the rugged squareness of her high cheekbones and jaw and the dark hue of her waving hair. They even smiled the same with the same flash of brilliant, well-cut teeth. She'd been assumed dead long ago along with the rest of the family except for Derek, so the sensationalism of the story in correspondence with her bizarre method of demise and concurrent disfigurement obviously made for irresistible front page bait. Stiles hoped Derek hadn't picked up a newspaper today.

There was a smaller picture of Derek at seventeen beneath Laura's which Stiles wasted no time in carefully tearing out and studying up close with a satisfied smirk on his face. Now, here was a boy he would have brought home to his dad. It was like someone had taken that severe rawboned face and added curves and softness to the cheeks. His dark hair was still severely spiked and his gorgeous blue eyes... Were green eyes. They were green in the picture. Had they been green? Stiles was sure he couldn't have been so dotty over the guy that he'd confused the color of his eyes. He was going to have another look the second he saw Derek later.

The picture must have been from a yearbook. Stiles didn't know that Derek had attended Beacon Hills High until he saw the Cyclone logo in the background of the photo. Why couldn't Stiles have been born in 1986? They could have gone to movies together and skipped classes to make out in the boiler room. They could have gone to prom together and met each others' mothers. He wondered offhand if Derek's father had ever been in his life. As far as Stiles knew, Talia Hale had always been a single mother. Derek had never mentioned a father, but his mother had three children of different ages. There had to have been a Mr. Hale at some point. Well, no. There didn't have to have been anything. For all Stiles knew the three Hale children could have had three different fathers. Who was he to impose a nuclear family dynamic on a clan of werewolves? For all he knew, werewolves were cooked into existence in boiling cauldrons or congealed under moist stones.

Still, he made a note to ask Derek about a father at some point. No time soon, of course.

Stiles was thumbing through the story about Laura to prevent himself from strangling Scott with the wire from the blinds. The only sound in the hushed school library during their shared study hall was the sizzling whisper passing between Scott and Allison Argent from a few tables away. Allison, of the Werewolf Hunter Argents. Allison, who Derek had specifically told Scott posed an imminent danger to his life. Stiles was hard-pressed himself to believe this stunningly pretty girl with her swan-like neck was capable of doing harm to Scott in his transient form, but that was just internalized sexism talking.

Derek had mentioned an “artillery nest”. Well, that made sense. It didn't take a man the size of a lumberjack to lift a gun and put a bullet between your eyes. If anything it had been proven in recent studies that women were better sharpshooters by far than men. Stiles doubted even an Alpha werewolf could heal from having its brain casing pummeled into paste by an automatic assault weapon. That or, say, being cut in half at the waist.

Yet here was Scott, flirting away with the girl who might well soon prove the instrument of his demise. How could he know that she didn't already know what he was? How did he know this Allison Argent who apparently smelled like lilacs wasn't some Trojan Horse these people – who Derek had called aristocratic barbarians – were just dangling for him to entrap him before they hung him from a gibbet and took a chainsaw to his sternum? God, that wasn't an appetizing image. Stiles couldn't have been angrier with Scott. It was overruling his own elation about seeing Derek again in less than three hours' time and that only proved to piss him off all the more.

Stiles tore a leaf out of his binder and scribbled a single word across the page in scrawling ink pen, underlining it with heavy frenetic strokes. Just a single word that he hoped would be enough to snap his best friend out of whatever trance it was this girl was holding over him; “Dangerous”.

Yes, it was so obvious now that she was dangerous, look at how she'd captured him heart and soul already. Stiles was half-convinced by the time he was finished folding the page into an intricate bottle-nosed paper airplane that he was absolutely right; she knew. How could she not know? It was all too coincidental, and if he'd ever learned anything from his father it was that nearly nothing is coincidental when all the lines on a map converge the way they were in this situation. The Beast of Beacon Hills – that's what they were calling it in the paper – kills Laura Hale, then one of the Argents cuts her in half and uses her as bait to draw Derek home, the witch is drawn back first and calls Derek home by some weird telepathic rapport, and just the day after Scott is bitten by the Alpha this Allison Argent of the Werewolf Hunter Argents shows up at school and starts fluttering her eyelashes at him? None of that was coincidental, it couldn't be. Stiles would have had to be a complete idiot to discount any of it as coincidence.

The paper airplane did loops in the air as it sailed over the long tables separating the whispering pair from Stiles. Scott either saw it out of the corner of his eye or heard it flitting on the air toward him, because he reached up to catch it nimbly in one hand without turning his head. Stiles could have killed him. He could have killed himself for assuming Scott would have enough of a mind to be a little less conspicuous. Allison cocked her head and made a show of fake applause at his reflexes. That's right, Scott, show off your unparalleled athleticism for the girl who's probably packing a machine pistol in her messenger bag with your name on every bullet. Fucking idiot.

Scott unfolded the paper airplane and scanned it quickly before he crumpled it and tossed it back at Stiles with an angry glare. Stiles batted the ball of paper away as he watched Allison regarding the both of them with an inquisitive eye. This was bad. This was monumentally bad. Scott had gone stupid over this girl.

Stiles gathered his bag and slipped out of the library the moment Mr. Harris lowered his bespectacled face into a stack of Chemistry syllabuses. It took absolutely no effort at all. There certainly wasn't any decree against skipping out on a study hall, especially this early in the year, but considering Adrian Harris' sadistic virtue in singling out Stiles to vent his pathetic temper on it was better to just slip away unnoticed.

He'd done all he could for Scott, or at least all he was willing to do right now. He'd told Scott everything Derek had told him, explained to him everything he now knew about Alphas, Betas, and Omegas. Then he'd thrown in the stuff about the witch that he'd learned on the way to school for good measure. All he'd really wanted to do was babble to his best friend for hours about how Derek had acted like a lovesick teenager in purloining his phone number, how Derek had smelled, how Derek had felt holding him to sleep. How he had stolen his first kiss from Derek on a mad whim. But Scott was haunted by the thought of the girl who smelled of lilacs. If anything, Derek's dark warning had only spurred Scott to seek out Allison all the more. To prove to Derek and Stiles that she was nothing more than a beautiful girl.

Well, Stiles had to admit that Allison was far more than just a beautiful girl, werewolf hunter or not. He could see what Scott saw in her. In what small time Stiles had spent with her, he'd actually found her to be very eloquent and likable. The fact that she had become fast friends with Lydia Martin but shied away from bathing in the eternal spotlight that followed Lydia and Jackson around the hallways made her all the more enjoyable to be around. On the surface she really did seem to be a generally kind and friendly person. Scott had actually asked her if she wanted to spend some time together after he got off work later that evening, which had driven Stiles into a blustering rant until he realized there was nothing he could say or do to prevent his friend from chasing this girl. Scott had gone stupid over her, and then some. Stiles had to satisfy himself with the knowledge that Derek had only warned him to be careful around her. That could only mean that she didn't know yet that Scott had been bitten, couldn't it? How could she know?

Stiles wondered whether or not there really was a machine pistol in her bag. It was awfully large, even for a girls' school bag. He tried not to think about it.

He slipped out a side door between bells after stealing into the boys' locker room and emptying most of what remained in his locker for lacrosse into his bag, dodging Coach Finstock's office window deftly where within Coach was going over field formations on a ludicrous oversize chalkboard with a stream of eighties power ballads blasting from under the door.

The contents of Stiles' sport locker didn't amount to much more than two bright scarlet jerseys with his name on them and a single canister of obnoxious male body spray – the kind that burns the hair in your nostrils. True to his word, he had donated the rest of his gear to Scott. He wondered offhand whether he should have the talk with his dad about quitting the team before or after he came out then realized that his father had probably already gotten a call from Coach about his walking out of practice the other day. Good thing his dad had been working so much. Good thing he had barely been home.

God, was he really going to come out to his dad? He was, wasn't he? There wasn't really any backing out now. Well, he could've backed out if he'd wanted to, but he didn't want to. He was tired. He was dead tired of lying about it. If he had to go on lying about seeing Derek – being with Derek or whatever it was they were doing – then he could do that for another year before he turned eighteen. But he needed to tell his dad what he was. It seemed the moment he'd admitted it to himself the thing had materialized into an entity of its own that he couldn't just shove back under a pile of dirty socks in his closet to fester a second longer. He couldn't go on lying. His mom wouldn't have wanted him to hide this.

His mom would've really liked Derek. Now, there was a thought. Was he really imagining that Derek and he would still be making eyes at each other and holding hands a year from now when he was free to be with whoever he wanted to be? Better not let that slip to the wolf-man. Bad enough he had to be Stiles' first in just about every regard. First kiss, first cuddle, first... Whatever. Bad enough Stiles was putting that much on his shoulders, he didn't need to let it slip that he was already envisioning some kind of future between them. It was stupid even to think it.

Stiles drove home and made himself a sloppy turkey and tomato sandwich before parking himself in front of his computer. By the time he'd pulled into his driveway and checked his phone to find two messages from Scott asking why he'd skipped out on his last three classes he had about an hour and a half before he was supposed to meet Derek. Yet Derek hadn't contacted him yet. He was beginning to get apprehensive about it, so he decided to occupy his mind instead of lying around waiting and biting his nails to the quick.

Allison was pretty easy to pull up on any number of popular social media sites. She used the same picture for every profile, a simple shot centered on her pale, well-shaped face with her milk chocolate locks framing her features in gorgeous waves. It would have been a totally unexceptional photo if she weren't posed with a small smile in front of a wall of human skulls.

There were other bones set into the stone behind her of what Stiles could only assume was a crypt of some sort, a startling multitude of millions and millions of stark yellow bones. But the skulls were what drew the eye, fixed in close symmetrical patterns within a mosaic of hip joints and God knows what else. He couldn't identify half the bones he was looking at. There was a large stone crucifix carved into the stone among the bones though, probably one of many. He'd read somewhere about a place like that in France, and upon reading the caption to the photo the memory came back to him. It read, “Dans Les Catacombes de Paris avec Grand-Père” – “In The Catacombs of Paris with Grandpa”.

Yes, Stiles had definitely read about this place once. The cemeteries of Paris had been overwhelmed with bodies, though whether from sickness or some typical European political drama or both he couldn't be sure. He couldn't even remember what century it had been in that the city of Paris decided to move a couple million peoples' remains down into these tunnels to make a public gallery of them, but he made a note to himself to look it up later. He was too disturbed by the sight of sweet, lovable Allison smiling in front of a hedge of cracked skulls and teeth to think much on when those bones had been artfully set into the stone of the walls.

He could see that Scott was already connected with her on two of her profiles. That must have happened before Derek's warning. But of course Scott wouldn't have given a second thought to this picture even after Derek told him she was dangerous. Scott wouldn't have connected the location itself to her colorful French name. Argent. Silver. Silver for killing werewolves. And here was a girl with silver in her name standing in front of a wall of bones. And the idiot was still chasing this girl. Stiles wondered if he shouldn't just commandeer these chains that Derek had mentioned and kidnap his friend indefinitely, bind him to a rock like Prometheus somewhere till he came to his damn senses.

From Allison's profile Stiles managed to track down the business profile of one Christopher Argent. Now, here was a guy who looked like he could wrestle a werewolf if there ever was one. His hair was close cut above a severe, frown-lined face and a pair of sea-green eyes that practically scowled on their own without the abet of the rest of his face. Then of course there were his listed professional credentials; private security consultant and weapons dealer. Weapons dealer? These were the famous werewolf hunting Argents that had concealed themselves from all written history? The guy couldn't have pretended to be a line cook or a salsa instructor? It was like Batman trying to conceal his secret identity by walking around with a pocketful of batarangs and smoke pellets during his nine-to-five as Bruce Wayne at a military tech conglomerate.

Wait... Wasn't that exactly what Batman did? Nevermind.

Victoria Argent, it seemed, had erred toward a bit more subtlety in her own alleged occupation – substitute teacher and part-time office administrative manager and HR specialist – though she could have also shattered glass with a look. If anything she was scarier than her husband by tenfold. Her vivid ginger hair was cropped short and her wide, intense blue eyes radiated something that might have been a wildfire of rage from within the lines of her smooth, immaculately made-up face. Stiles could see where Allison had gotten her perfect bone China skin. He could actually see bits of both Christopher and Victoria Argent blended into Allison's pretty young face. She was all her father in the eyes and brow, all quiet strength though Allison's eyes were the same color as her muddy hair rather than his striking azure. And she had inherited from her mother a slender round nose and those almost sulky lips that were always perfectly lined and colored. The difference there was that Allison preferred muted tones for her lips that nearly matched her natural color while Victoria Argent's were tinged a rich, bright red. Like an open wound slashed across her face.

What had Derek called Victoria Argent? He'd called her “Allison Argent's homicidal mother”. He hadn't mentioned Christopher Argent at all, at least not specifically. And the person who had been instrumental in killing his family had been a woman too. Then of course he'd warned Scott to beware of Allison first. Sweet, kind Allison who smelled like lilacs. It seemed the women of this family were the ones to be afraid of. Certainly not without reason. Stiles' mind went right back to the wall of bones. Les Catacombes de Paris.

Stiles hoped to God Scott had any idea what he was getting himself into, but knowing Scott he wasn't holding out much hope.

His phone buzzed in his pocket and his hand dove for it. He sighed in blissful relief to see it was from Derek; “You're not at school.” It was thirty minutes till last bell. He grinned and swallowed what remained of his sandwich as he answered quickly;

“Thanks for the heads up, Edward, but I was aware of that. Your place, twenty minutes?”

Derek Hale was trying to pick him up from school in that shiny black sex wagon. Derek was listening for his heartbeat or searching for his scent or, for all he knew, strolling around the building peeking into windows with that dreamy blue-not-blue stare looking for him. Stiles could have died. He was getting butterflies again just thinking about it, swinging his legs giddily back and forth beneath his desk. Next time he was going to make damn sure he was there so everyone could see him ducking into the Camaro in the parking lot with a hot older man at the wheel. The very idea was giving him goosebumps even as he tried to play it cool. Thank God for text messaging. The jerk couldn't chemo-scent his embarrassing teenage glee over a text. Derek answered almost immediately;

“You'll beat us there. Stay in the jeep and keep the engine running until we get there.”

Well, that certainly let the air out of Stiles' elation. We. Of course there was a “we”. He'd actually forgotten why they were going back out to the house on the preserve. Stupid Frog-Eater. Well, that was more embarrassing by far than any amount of squealing and jumping up and down he could have done. Thank God for text messaging.

“Loud and clear. See you when I see you.”

He sent the message with a dramatic exhalation. Was that properly aloof? Maybe aloof wasn't the best idea. Maybe he should have added one of those stupid little heart emojis or said something like, “Can't wait.” Too late, forget about it. Take your medication. Mind's going all over the place again. Just take your damn medication and get the rest of the stuff.

Stiles chugged an entire bottle of water with his Adderall as he moved to and fro in the house as quickly as he could, flitting first to the foot locker at the end of his father's bed which he opened with the same key he so often used to get into the desk downstairs. From there he descended to the desk itself and unlocked the bottom-most drawer on the right side, hearing the contents clattering around in a little wooden box roughly the size of his hand as he pulled the drawer wide. He didn't empty the box, merely picking out a few of its contents and dropping them into his pocket. Then he took the body spray from his locker and spritzed a fair amount into his pocket and into the palm of both hands before also dowsing the inside of his bag in the thick spicy concoction. Derek texted him again as he was locking the drawer and slipping the key into his other pocket;

“When will your dad be home?”

Stiles piqued at that and answered; “Not till eight or nine tonight.” His father had texted him earlier saying he was going to be working late again. Normally Stiles would have chided him and told him to come home and get some sleep by five at the latest, but today it suited him to just take the pizza money and run with it. Derek responded;

“Change of plans. Getting you from your place. Kick Demps out of the front seat for me.”

Stiles pumped a fist into the air and whooped to himself; “Done. Get your ass over here. You hungry?”

“Starving, actually,” was Derek's reply.

Stiles clutched a rumpled paper bag as he practically skipped down the driveway toward the approaching Camaro ten minutes later. When he swung open the passenger side door at the front he did a quick double take.

The witch was reclining with the seat ratcheted all the way back, his long legs kicked up onto the dashboard in a pair of brand new charcoal gray high-top sneakers with the laces intricately wound into a checkerboard pattern. On the bridge of his crooked nose were resting a pair of enormous gold-tinted sunglasses that hid half his face, and his long oily hair was pulled back into a tight ponytail at the base of his neck. He was wearing a loose billowing white t-shirt with a deep round neck that descended nearly to his abdomen, cinched with a simple black vest above a pair of fresh gray jeans. Not a bloodstain in sight. Stiles was genuinely shocked at how neat and trimmed he looked. The only reminder of the scraggly wretch from the night before was the hempen satchel still rattling at his hip.

When Stiles opened the door Dempsey grinned up at him mischievously and swung one slender leg out the door, pulling down the sunglasses just enough to wink one burnt caramel eye at him as he relinquished the front seat. “Mr. Stillinski,” he said with a flourish.

“You clean up pretty nice for a water rat,” Stiles said as he climbed into the front seat. There was a faint scent of tiger lilies in the car but Derek's soft rainwater cologne and the clove cigarette in his left hand prevailed, at least to Stiles.

“Jesus, Sugah, do all teenagers these days use Agent Orange as aftershave?” Dempsey said, waving a hand in front of his face and letting down his window. “Good God, back in mah day a little Florida Water went a long way.”

“Fuck off with your 'back in my days',” Stiles said. “You sound like my dad. You're not that old. I didn't get a chance to shower after PE.”

“Still – thanks – ” said Derek, accepting the thick pastrami sandwich Stiles handed him wrapped in wax paper as he pulled out of the driveway, “You smelled fine before. You were sweaty last night and you smelled fine. I like the way you smelled.” He said the last part with a mite of hesitance, looking to Stiles as if for consent. Stiles only laughed victoriously at the back of his throat – he likes the way I smell! – and handed a second sandwich back to Dempsey, who accepted it with a hint of surprise.

“Well, aren't you something, Stiles Stillinski?” Dempsey said before tearing half the sandwich off in one enormous bite. “Huh,” he said through his overwhelming mouthful, “Forgot what cured meat tastes like. Ain't that something?”

But Stiles barely heard him, taking in the sight of Derek in a fresh and salaciously tight black tank top. He'd tossed his cigarette away so he could chow down on the sandwich and drive with his free hand. His hair was freshly gelled and spiked to perfection again. Stiles ran a hand through his own hair and felt that his soft buzz was growing out. He was glad. He was getting tired of the sheer cut. Time to try something new, he figured. He wasn't the same person he was 24 hours ago.

“What'd you guys get into today?” Stiles asked, trying to be amiable as they whipped over the underpopulated road toward the preserve. Derek could tell he was nervous and slipped his pinkie over Stiles' middle finger after he'd finished the sandwich and crumpled the wax paper into a ball.

“Went to a perfectly horrifying outlet mall that smelled like cold sick and sawdust,” Dempsey said, licking his fingers one by one. “Ah don't remember ever going anywhere like that when Ah used to live here. Talia used to take us to Brooks Brothers and have us fitted for sharp little suits for church.”

Stiles couldn't suppress an awed little puff. “You guys went to church? My mom and dad never even went to church.”

“Just trying to fit in,” Derek explained. “Trying to seem like regular folks. My little sister and I hated it. Cora hated wearing dresses. Laura, though? She put up with it for an excuse to wear dresses.”

“She was six feet tall in two-inch heels, our Laura,” said Dempsey fondly. “Our amazon woman. And she could knock a grown man on his ass just by walking down that center aisle in the Church Of The Holy Spirit in a demure little Sunday dress and a nice pair of heels. Girl could throw a punch besides, but she almost never had to. Taught me to throw a punch. Derek and Cora too. But we almost never had to throw our own punches. All Laura had to do was sashay up to some bully and give them a little shove. Just the barest little shove with no indication of her real strength, just enough to make them flinch. And all the while she'd be boring holes in their head with that stare of hers, and they would turn tail and run like the Devil's hounds were snapping at their heels.”

“We called it the Evil Eye,” Derek said, and Stiles smiled and put his entire hand over Derek's. “She got it from my mother. She and my mother would have these battles that happened just in their stares when they argued. I think my mother challenged her sometimes just to bring it out in her. She was so proud of Laura.”

“There was a warrior woman,” Dempsey went on, his voice wistful. “Beautiful Laura, our warrior princess. We looked up to her like she was a goddess.”

Derek shifted in his seat. “That's a bit much, Demps.”

But the witch reached up and clouted him gently on the side of the head. “Don't let him fool you, Stiles. He worshiped her, he and Cora both.”

“What was Cora like?” Stiles asked, directing the question at Dempsey rather than Derek. It seemed talking about his family made the witch less a monster and more a grieving brother. It was a nice change. There wasn't any sneer or lilting evil in his voice. Derek looked quickly at Stiles and gave him a warm smile.

“Like a tornado,” Dempsey said, laughing a little. “She would be... How old would she be, Derek? She'd be your age, Stiles. Wouldn't she? She was eleven when Ah left. She'd be seventeen. Can you imagine what that girl would look like now?” Derek hung his head and swallowed. “She was all prickly edges and indignant, puffed-up cheeks. Mah baby girl. Used to ride around on mah shoulders till she got too big for her britches. Then it was all rough and tumble soccer, and scrapping with boys, and climbing trees at midnight till the sky opened up above her and she could sit up there in the canopy and howl at the stars. If Laura was a tsunami that could knock you on your ass then Cora was a tornado. You remind me of her a little.” He said this to Stiles. “She had all this frantic energy, always running back and forth and screaming her little head off.”

“Definitely sounds like me at that age,” Stiles said. The Camaro had slipped under tree cover and was beginning the descent along the narrow dirt trail into the preserve. “I'm sorry,” he added, “Nobody deserves to lose people like that. Both of you. I'm sorry they're gone.”

But Dempsey shook his head as he adjusted his ponytail behind him. “Nobody's ever really gone, Sugah.” Derek gave him a dark look in the rearview mirror but the witch merely shrugged.

The ruins of the Hale house were even more tragic in daylight. Derek parked the car off the trail about a half mile down the hill and they walked the rest of the way, tiptoeing around splintered boards and plaster that had rained down in the explosion. Stiles kept a careful eye to the shadows. The thick canopy didn't provide for much in the way of lighting. Once they'd entered the realm of the trees it seemed the day shifted nearly to nightfall like someone had flicked a switch. Stiles knew that it was just some base impulse that caused the anxiety he felt after looking over his shoulder the first time, some mechanism that ancient man had developed when he was mere prey in a world of predatory megafauna, but it didn't do a thing to placate him from a sinking fear of seeing eyes burning red in the shrubbery. Derek must have sensed this and began talking to fill the silence.

“Demps,” he said, “What was it that you did when you threw the Alpha from the house?” Stiles turned toward the witch, fascinated himself by the prospective answer. “That wasn't any voodoo.”

Dempsey took the slope one long leisurely stride at a time, hips swaying this way and that. “Telekinesis,” he answered.

Derek looked at Stiles, as if to say, “You were right.”

“It was in the first two years after Ah left that Ah learned how to do it,” Dempsey explained, reaching down while still in motion to pluck a little white starflower from its bed and weave the stem carefully into his hair above his right eye. “Anybody with the potential for magick in their blood and bones can do it if they're open to being taught. If they're willing to climb the crags of Aag Parvat with their bare hands and ring the bell at Svarg Par Ghar.”

Aag Parvat, Svar Par Ghar. What language was that? What were these places? But Derek didn't ask. The witch went on before Stiles could ask himself.

“The Sisters of The White Phoenix don't let just anybody pass through their doors, you see. Even if you climb the mountain they'll turn you away if you're not a mystic. We have a spark, you see. Mystics.” He pointed to his chest. “Ah think Ah've explained this to Derek before but you wouldn't know, Stiles. We have a spark like Alphas have a spark, only different. How different, Ah'm not sure. How it is that Ah have a spark inside me that doesn't make me an Alpha by proxy, Ah'm not sure. Maybe it's because mah magicks have always taken precedence. Maybe it's because Ah spend so little time in the wolf skin. There are some things that are simply unknowable. Ah'm sorry about the house, by the way, Derek.”

He picked up a ruined piece of lumber and studied it sadly before tossing it aside. “Ah don't know what came over me. Ah think just being aware of it is helping me keep a leash on it. Ah meditated all through the night and burned sage and sandalwood.”

“Do you think it was one of the Loa?” Derek asked. “Did something possess you?”

Dempsey thought on this for a moment. “No, not the Loa. Never the Loa, not like that. When Les Mystéres put their hands into a human body for whatever reason the possession is usually violent. Ah don't mean violent like what Ah did with the birds. Ah mean Ah would have been in spasms, speaking in tongues, foaming at the mouth. But last night... It was like mah first time in the wolf skin, when Ah was just a tiny thing. It was like watching mahself through a pane of glass, hearing words coming from mah mouth that were mostly mine but also... Yes, you're right. They were someone else's words as much as they were mine. Something else's. But not the Loa, no...” He looked up to the sky as he passed under a break in the trees that allowed a single beam of sunlight to fall on him. “The night Ah tried to save Scott... Ah wasn't praying to the Loa. Ah wasn't letting blood for The Invisible People that night, or last night.”

“Then what were you praying to?” asked Stiles.

Dempsey flung a look his way, and Stiles was shaken to see he looked a little afraid. “Do you know what a nemeton is, Stiles?”

Derek stopped in his tracks like he'd been slapped. “Demps, are you insane!? Are you out of your fucking mind!?”

“What was Ah to do?” Dempsey said, walking ahead so that Derek had to resume to keep up. “Ah was too far away from him, Ah didn't have the power to do it on mah own.”

“What about now!?” Derek roared, and Stiles gripped his shoulder, unsure of what the hell was going on. Unsure of what the hell a nemeton was that Derek was so furious with Dempsey for tampering with it. “What power do you have in you now!? Oh, my God. It all makes sense now. Mom made you swear never to look for it again! You swore to her, Demps!”

“You think Ah don't know that?” Dempsey asked without looking back, his voice quavering with poorly concealed emotion. “You think Ah don't hate mahself for it? Ah thought Talia would be right up there in the morning, sitting in her chair on the porch and reading Kipling.” He pointed up at the monolith of the ruined house on the hill. “Ah thought she would be there like she always was so Ah could beg her forgiveness. So Ah could beg her to understand that Ah was trying to save a life. You think Ah don't hate mahself now knowing she isn't here anymore to forgive me? What's done is done, Derek. Ah can't take it back.”

“I can't believe you,” said Derek. “You're unbelievable. You swore to her... Goddamn you, Demps. How did you even find it? Even after she died I couldn't remember where it was.”

“No, you wouldn't have, would you?” Dempsey said. “Ah couldn't tell you where it is, either. Somehow Ah can't even feel my way to it on the telluric currents. Like it's been hidden from any method of perception Ah possess. That'll be the damn druid's doing, the damn veterinarian. After Talia took the memory from us and the girls he must have put some kind of mumbo jumbo around the damn thing to prevent any of us from ever walking into that grove again. Even me. Ah wouldn't be surprised if we passed it on our way here and never even saw it.”

The damn veterinarian? There was only one veterinarian in cozy little Beacon Hills. What did Scott's boss have to do with anything?

“Then how the hell did you borrow power from it?” Derek demanded. “How did you manage that when you don't even know where it is anymore?”

“Ah don't know mahself,” Dempsey explained. “Ah asked and let some blood, and it answered. It was a Hail Mary. Ah was desperate. It might not have even been the nemeton.”

“What the fuck else do you know of in these woods that could loan you that kind of power, Demps? You idiot, Mom would be ashamed of you.”

Stiles jogged a little up the slope to catch up to the both of them. “Could you two maybe put a kibosh on this little familial spat long enough to explain to me what the hell you're talking about? What is a nemeton and what does Dr. Deaton have to do with any of this?”

Derek looked like he'd just remembered that Stiles was with them. “You know Deaton?”

“Scott works for him part time after school.”

Dempsey gave a sharp laugh. “Well, ain't that something? This town's too damn small.”

“Derek, what the hell does he mean? Why did he call Dr. Deaton a druid? The guy's a druid? The guy who taught Scott how to put a rectal thermometer into a Cocker Spaniel? He knew your family were werewolves?”

Derek exhaled through his nostrils and put his arm around Stiles' shoulders, leading him around a pile of rubble as they neared the summit of the hill where the house sat in shambles. “He was our emissary. Something a lot of packs don't have in the twenty-first century. Believe it or not practicing druids are pretty few and far between these days.”

“He practiced at picking and pecking and sticking his nose in where it didn't belong,” called Dempsey over his shoulder. “Damn hippie magicians, always moaning about not getting their hands dirty but always sticking their noses in.”

“Deaton's got magick?” Stiles asked. Scott's boss? The fucking veterinarian? Seriously?

“He does and he doesn't,” Derek explained. “Druids aren't like Dempsey. They have a magickal connection to the Earth, to the soil and trees. They trade more in knowledge than power. What magick they can perform is limited.”

“Not limited enough to banish me from the nemeton on our family's own property,” Dempsey said reproachfully. “Damn hippie diviner. Mah Mama had more knowledge of healing herbs and roots than he'd learned in all his long unnatural life.”

“How long are we talking here?” Stiles asked.

“Couple hundred years, at least,” Derek said. Stiles was floored. Dr. Deaton. The man who'd given Scott and Stiles lollipops and hugged them both after Scott had to put down his Labrador when they were nine. “We were never sure. Nobody ever asked. Nobody really cared. For as long as we could remember he'd been around. Druids have been acting as emissaries to wolf packs since before the Dark Ages. It's said the first werewolf sought out the druids at Lagan Valley in Ulster after a long, blood-soaked journey across the continent to teach him how to change back into a man.”

“What do they do for you guys?”

“Whatever they need to. They give guidance. If a pack's Betas look to their Alpha for guidance then so does the Alpha look to the emissary. They act as a bridge between the pack and the human world. They're there for births and deaths. They keep family records so our history isn't lost and they help our Alphas teach the young ones to control their first shifts with talismans and mantras.”

“Mumbo jumbo,” Dempsey muttered. All three breached the summit together and looked up at the Hale house. Derek sighed sadly and Dempsey put his head in his hands. “Gods of hearth and home, Ah fucked up big time, didn't Ah?”

“You lapped fucking up a few dozen times, Demps,” Derek said, before returning to his explanation for Stiles. “The nemeton was a giant oak tree that grew somewhere here on the preserve. Huge. Big as this house. The druids of New Albion used to use it as a place of worship hundreds of years before America was ever touched by white European settlers. But they weren't all just holy men and women wandering through the willows, chanting with lanterns and tripping on herbs and berries. Some of them indulged in blood magick and ritual sacrifice. A lot of them, actually. They spilled so much innocent blood on the roots of that tree that they imbued it with the magick potential, gave it a spark all its own. And anything that fosters magickal potential by the sacrifice of innocent lives is bound to not only be obscenely powerful, but intrinsically dark at its core as well. Not necessarily evil, but it's never a kind of magick you want to touch you. Mind you, I'm just telling this to you the way Deaton told it to me when I was a kid. I don't know too many details. Dempsey wouldn't either. The nemeton was always a forbidden place.”

“Talia took the memory of its location from all of us when she found out Ah'd been toying with the nemeton, trying to unlock its secrets,” Dempsey said. “It's something only powerful Alphas can do with their claws, a kind of mysticism all their own. They sink their claws into the spinal column at the base of the skull and draw out the memory like a siphon. After it was done we remembered what the nemeton was because Deaton had taught us about it when we were children, but we could never find it again. It wasn't enough for Talia to steal the location of it. She had the druid put up some kind of magickal aegis around it. Curse his hide.”

“She should have taken the memory of its very name from us,” Derek said, glaring daggers at him. “That way you could never have let that thing get its hooks into your mind. I could kill you, Demps. I've never been so pissed at you.”

“Not even when Ah did this?” Dempsey said, gesturing up at the giant hole in the West wall. “Don't answer that, actually. Not sure Ah care to know the answer.”

“And telluric currents?” Stiles asked, pressing them both. “And Aag Parvat and Svarg Par Ghar? Somebody want to wrap this up for me before we do anything else?” It was almost too much information to imbibe at once. He struggled to keep the pieces aligned in his head, resolving to write it all down whenever he got a chance. He was glad he'd taken an Adderall before coming here. He wouldn't have been able to keep any of this straight otherwise.

“Telluric currents are low-frequency electrical currents that run through the crust and mantle of the entire planet. Under every continent, island, and sea,” Dempsey explained. He crouched in the dirt and began drawing a series of crisscrossing lines in the earth with his finger. “Lifeblood of the Earth. When someone with the magick potential practices their craft, they draw energy up out of the currents and channel it through their body before returning it to the Earth. A mage is little more than a lightning rod in some ways. Supernatural beings tend to be drawn to places where the currents run strong and cross each other beneath our feet. It's why Ah was drawn here to Beacon Hills after Ah lost mah Mama all those years ago. Well, that and she told me to come here and seek out Talia Hale and to ask her for shelter. But Ah would have heard the call of the planet at its strongest here regardless. It's why the druids claimed this place as their place of worship as well, why they chose this certain giant oak to turn into a nemeton. It would be sitting right at the crossing of two of the strongest currents, somewhere out here on the preserve. Problem is, even if Ah was able to sit down and map where these currents are and where they cross – even if Ah were to go there and search and search with every spell in mah vernacular – Ah would never find the nemeton again. The druid concealed it well. Ah looked for it for years and years after Talia took the memory from us and Ah never found it.”

“That's not a problem, Demps, it's a blessing.”

“Ah suppose you're right,” Dempsey said, defeated. “And then there's Aag Parvat. The Fire Mountain. It's a hidden peak in the Himalayas that sits at the northernmost point of the border between Nepal and India.”

“He used to talk about it all the time,” Derek said, kicking pieces of rubble here and there into piles as if he were trying to tidy up the yard. “It was a folk legend he read in some dusty old book. He was obsessed with it. And at the very top of the mountain was the frozen monastery of The Sisters of The White Phoenix. An order of mystic monks who guarded the sacred bell at Svarg Par Ghar with their unimaginable powers.”

Dempsey cut in. “Svarg Par Ghar – it means House In The Heavens. Aag Parvat isn't nearly as tall as Everest but it pierces the clouds nonetheless, and it's so well hidden in the mist that even the people living at the foot of the mountains had never seen it themselves.”

“I never thought you'd find it,” Derek said, shaking his head. “But if anyone could've, it was you. Arrogant bastard.”

“Stop, you're going to make me blush.”

“That's where you learned it, then?” Stiles asked. “How to move things with your mind?” Dempsey nodded.

“It's a limited power. Takes a lot out of you. Even with mah physiology Ah can't do it very often or it'll wear me to death. Most of The Sisters study their entire lives on that mountain to be able to use the power with any great success. Ah was only there but a year and a half. Like Ah said, Ah meditated in the snow and wind for damn near six months before they even opened their doors to me. They don't take men as students often and they guard the secrets of their power jealously. But Ah convinced them of mah resolve somehow and they opened the doors and trained me in their secrets with a magickal oath that Ah would never reveal the mountain's location to another living soul. That Ah would never mark it on a map or speak more than a few sparse words about it if Ah had to. They bound me to it with spells and incantations so that even if Ah tried Ah could never reveal it. Because you see, they weren't just guarding the secret of their telekinetic power at the top of that mountain.”

“Now you're just shitting with us,” Derek said.

“Tell Stiles what else was at the top of that mountain, Derek.”

“Dempsey, I don't believe you. Just because you found the mountain doesn't mean the rest of it is true. It can't be true.”

“Says the man who turns into a wolf,” Dempsey said, smiling wickedly now. “Do you hear my heart, Derek?”

Derek just looked at him, eyes wide and mouth slightly open.

“It's true,” Dempsey insisted. “The story was all true. Ah saw it with mah own eyes. Ah heard its song echoing over the mountain. Most beautiful thing Ah've ever heard in mah life. Tell him what else was at the top of that mountain, Derek. What built its nest there above the monastery bell. You read the same book Ah did.”

Now Stiles was really curious. “Derek, what was it?”

Derek looked like he still didn't believe, or rather like he didn't want to believe. He looked like he was going through exactly what Stiles had felt when first he saw the claws tearing out of Scott's lacrosse gloves. His face was pale and drawn. He finally spoke after a time. “A phoenix. The only phoenix left on Earth.”

Dempsey nodded again as Stiles' jaw dropped in amazement. “The last of her kind, the rest of them slaughtered by ancient man and things that used to be men. The last Firebird – the Garuda, the Simurgh, the Fenghuang, a source of myth in every recorded human civilization – living and dying and living again, all alone up on that mountain crag in her nest of frankincense and wild cinnamon. Poor creature sang the saddest song.” Stiles didn't need heightened senses to know he was telling the truth. His eyes were watering at the memory. “The Sisters worship her and keep her safe, and every five-hundred years they get to bear witness as the phoenix dies and sets her nest ablaze with the holy fire that grows of her plumes. Then out of the ashes, a naked peeping chick. The chick lives in the bower of ash which continues smoldering for decades and The Sisters feed and care for it until she grows her own plumage and flies off to gather the branches from a frankincense tree in one talon and wild cinnamon in the other to build a new nest.

“Woe betide any mortal who climbs that mountain with the intent to do harm to the phoenix, whether they be historians and archaeologists who've read the story in books like we did or those who heard it on the vine or on the wind somewhere who seek to prove its truth. Nobody gets near that mountain who The Sisters don't allow. Helicopters are swept out of the air on sylphic winds. Climbers are tossed and buried by avalanches if they actually manage to find the right peak.”

“I... I can't believe it,” Stiles said. “Two days ago I wouldn't have even thought of believing it.

“Makes two of us,” Derek said in agreement. “Demps, I never would have... Not in a million years.”

“It was a beautiful thing,” Dempsey said, looking aside. “But Ah would have given up the chance to see it with mah own eyes if Ah could have been here to protect mah family. You see this here?” He pointed to the earth beside the baseboards of the porch. “Ah guess neither of you would be able to see it, but you know what it is, Derek? It hasn't all been washed away, even after all this time. Some of it was burnt right into the wood.”

Stiles looked to Derek, who nodded. “I can still smell it. Mountain ash. It's why they weren't able to get out of the house.”

Dempsey launched into the explanation for Stiles before he could ask. “Ash from the burnt remains of a rowan tree, which is ironically also called mountain ash. For warding off 'evil'. A werewolf can't cross a closed barrier of mountain ash. It used to be taught to children that if you suspected you were being pursued by a werewolf, you should climb a rowan tree and stay there till dawn. In the Dark Ages European farmers used to make all their farming tools out of rowan wood and used switches of it to drive their livestock to ensure they'd be fertile and healthy. It was the druids who taught the race of man to use it against us. And it looks like it was the druids again who brought that knowledge here to murder our family.”

“Demps, hunters have been using mountain ash for centuries. You can't blame Deaton for this.”

“Ah'm not blaming Alan for a damn thing,” Dempsey said as he crept along the wall with one hand sliding along the exterior of the house. “But you ever wonder how they ringed the house in ash and started the blaze going without a single nose being roused within? Without Talia picking up the scent or Peter hearing them with his ear always pressed to every door? Ah'm sure you've wondered. You're no good at playing dumb, Derek.”

Now here were the questions Stiles had been waiting for answers to.

“They had a mystic with them,” Derek said. Well, of course they did. “A druid. I've given it some pretty hard thought myself. I've talked to Deaton about it over and over. He doesn't know who it was.”

“Well, neither do Ah,” said Dempsey. “But Ah can taste her magick here. Faintly, but Ah can taste her. It was a woman. Two women who did it, one a druid and the other the woman from mah vision. And there were five men besides. The druid cloaked them from even Talia's immense powers. What kind of capacity must she have had to hide the presence of six murderers from someone like Talia... How much blood she must have spilled. And she'll have used the nemeton to do it... Bitch. Abusing her gifts to kill children. Ah'll find her. Ah'll find her and make her scream. Ah'll find all of them.” Derek opened his mouth to protest but Dempsey put a finger up to indicate he should be quiet. He moved around to the hole in the wall and stepped into the interior of the house.

“Demps, be careful. Damn it, be careful.”

But the witch didn't seem to have heard him. Derek followed him in and Stiles circled around to the front door, taking another look at the heavy lock where it had been shattered outward. Mountain ash. That explained why the door had been battered open but no one had been able to exit the house. How awful, to not be able to walk out an open door while your children died beside you. He opened the door and entered the house again.

Dempsey had his ear pressed against the far wall, hands sliding up and down the scorched plaster as he moved back and forth against it. Then he put his hands on the long tables in the halls intersecting the foyer and walked the length of them, and Stiles could hear him begin to sob quietly as he did so. The wind picked up a little and he caught a stronger scent of tiger lilies. Stiles unzipped his bag and laid it at his feet, watching the witch intently as Derek followed closely in his footsteps.

“So much... Too much,” Dempsey said as he came back out into the foyer and began climbing the first set of stairs slowly, his hands stroking the banister. “Oh, Dieu. Ces monstres. Oh, Talia... Je suis vraimont désolé, Talia. Pardonne-moi, s'il te plait maman.”

“Demps, I think that's enough,” Derek said, but Dempsey didn't heed him one bit. He came down the stairs on the other side and felt the banister there as well. His face was ugly with tears now.

“Ah can't tell who was where,” Dempsey said. “There's just too much. Too much pain, too much fear. Soaked right into the boards. All Ah can hear are screams. Ah can't... Ah can't even tell where Talia died, where Cora died. Ah can't find them.” He sounded broken beyond measure.

“Peter was here,” he said suddenly as his head snapped up, gesturing to a far corner where there was a slight stain against the wall. He moved over to it and put his forehead against it. “Clothes melted into his skin, into the wall. He lived, his imprints are strongest. He was trapped by a fallen beam. He... He watched them die, Yuliana and the twins. Oh, Peter. Oh, God, Peter. Ah'm so sorry. Cousin Yuliana was clutching the babies. Ah can see it like Peter saw it. Smell of burning fat, skin crisping. They were screaming. Oh, God, those poor babies.”

“Demps, that's enough. I don't want to hear any more of this.” Derek was crying now too, trying to turn the witch to face him. “That's enough, damn it!”

“Uncle Pietro tried to pull her from the fire. The babies were already gone but Pietro was trying to save his daughter. Yuliana begging him to just let her go. She never even named the twins. Then the roof came down on them, right there.” He pointed. Derek was in a rage.

“I said that's enough! I'll leave you here, I swear I will. No more, Demps. That's enough!” The wind quickened again, the floral scent rising with it. Stiles crouched and reached into his bag, keeping his hand there. He saw the tears cascading down Derek's face, wetting his shirt, and he was prepared for what was coming. What he had to do. Stiles was more than angry enough for it.

“Then Magnus,” said Dempsey as if he hadn't heard Derek at all, shuddering as if he were in a trance. “Peter saw Magnus come into the room holding little Gabor by the hand. Called their names, then the fire closed the hallway off. He heard Talia screaming somewhere. Oh, Talia... Ah can't find her. Ah can't find Cora. Where were they? Ah can hear Talia screaming, but Peter couldn't see her... Oh, Dieu. Où étiez-vous, maman? Oh, Dieu.” The wind began to whip as Derek wrenched on his arm. Stiles was forced back against the wall by the magick gale, feeling the most sickening sense of déjà vu. The witch's voice rose in pitch and intensity till it was a scream. “Talia... Talia! TALIAAAA! OÙ ÉTIEZ-VOUS, MAMAN!?”

Derek punched him so hard his head opened a hole in the plaster. The witch reeled but wobbled to his feet as Derek readied himself to strike him again. The wind only grew stronger.

Stiles watched in horror, shielding his face from a whirlwind of flying debris and clutching his bag, as Derek was stopped mid-step as if he'd struck a wall. As Derek was lifted off his feet by the witch's power, the power he'd learned atop a mountain beneath the nest of the last phoenix on Earth.

“TELL ME HER NAME, DEREK! TELL ME HER NAME OR AH'LL TAKE IT FROM YOU!”

“This isn't you!” Stiles heard Derek shout over the wind. “Demps, let it go! Let it go or it's going to eat you alive!”

“TELL ME HER NAME! TELL ME! AH'LL HAVE BLOOD FOR THEM! AH WON'T BE DENIED! YOU CAN'T HEAR THEIR SCREAMS! YOU CAN'T HEAR THEM! GIVE IT TO ME OR AH'LL TAKE IT!”

Well, now was as good a time as any.

Stiles had never fired a gun before, but he knew how to load the Smith & Wesson 29 magnum that he'd taken from his father's foot locker – his dad's spare piece, the gun that Stiles had hidden the scent of from the wolf-men with liberal amounts of obnoxious body spray. Stiles knew exactly how to cock back the hammer and sight down the barrel. He'd seen his dad do it at the range a thousand times. He'd watched and compartmentalized every little nuance of the procedure right down to the proper stance and grip. He'd never fired a gun before, but he got lucky. The kick felt like it broke his arm, but he found immediately after the round exited the chamber and the cartridge fell at his feet that he was intact but for the sudden jarring pain of the recoil.

He'd been aiming for a gut shot but the bullet ripped into the witch's sternum right beneath his lungs instead. So he'd been off by a few inches, so what? He'd only had time to load one round into the rotating chamber. He figured he'd done a pretty damn good job for his first time. Seemed these last two days had held a lot of firsts for him, and while his first shot wasn't nearly as satisfying as his first kiss it still felt pretty damn good.

The wind died immediately and the witch crumpled with a gasp as the room settled. The bullet had torn right through him and come out the other side to bite a nick in the plaster. Stiles dropped the gun back into his bag as he rushed forward to help Derek. Derek had fallen beside Dempsey and was gasping for air, tears still pouring.

“You fucking idiot,” Derek said to the witch between gulping breaths. Stiles dropped to his knees beside him and looked him over to make sure he wasn't hurt too severely. It was a strange time to take note of it, but he looked directly into Derek's eyes and saw that they were green instead of blue. They must have changed in the low light. They would probably change again in the sun. Stiles managed to haul him to his feet as he continued cursing the witch. “You fucking idiot, what good did that do? Huh? I told you. I fucking told you. Did you do anyone any good, seeing that? You think I needed more fodder for my nightmares!? I fucking loved those kids too, you bastard. I loved them! I didn't need to hear that. Goddamn you.” Stiles had to hold him close to keep him from falling on the witch and pummeling him again. As long as Stiles held onto him he wouldn't use an iota of his true strength.

Dempsey clutched his wound, sobbing, “Ah'm sorry. Ah'm so sorry.” He rose into a kneel and covered his mouth with one hand. “Ah didn't... That wasn't... Ah don't know what...”

“I know it wasn't you, you damn idiot! You borrowed power from the nemeton and you really didn't think there'd be a price to pay!? MOM MADE YOU SWEAR! This is the price, Dempsey! This is why she took that memory from you, so you couldn't hurt people! This is the price! You hurt the people who care about you, over and over. You destroy the only thing we have left to remember our family by, you destroy our mother's house! You destroy everything you touch, that's the fucking price. How can you not see that?”

“Derek... Ah... Ah want to...”

“No, I've heard enough of your shit. You can rot here with your visions and your magick. Go to Hell, Dempsey.”

“Derek... Do you want to see them?”

“Fuck you! Fuck... What? What the hell did you just say?”

Stiles pulled Derek a few steps away as Dempsey fell back against the wall and let his long legs splay out before him. His brand new white shirt was soaked through with brackish blood. There was a seam of blood coming out of the side of his mouth, as well. He'd stopped crying altogether. A fierce determination had replaced the tears in his eyes.

“Ah asked if you wanted to see them,” he said, with more strength than before. Stiles could see with great frustration that he was already healing. “On the Barley Moon, at the witching hour when mah magick will be at its strongest. Ah don't know if Ah can call the others, but Talia and the girls were closest to us both and they will come if Ah call. Not for long and they won't be able to speak to us, but they'll come and they'll listen. Ah know where Ah can find some of their things for the ritual. If Ah've caused you pain let this be mah apology, both for you and for me.”

Stiles wanted to open his bag for the gun again. He felt Derek shaking uncontrollably in his arms, almost as if he was having a seizure.

“Just think on it. Ah'll find mah way back to the motel on mah own. Ah've got some things to take care of first, and Ah promise you Ah'll do mah best to do no harm. But you think on it. You've got two days to think on it, but know it has to be on the full moon. If not the Barley Moon then the Hunter's Moon after will work just fine, so Ah suppose we have all the time in the world. When you're ready. If you're ever ready. But Ah'd... Ah'd like to say goodbye to mah sisters. To Talia. Ah won't do it without your permission but Ah'd really like to say goodbye.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, so I just finished season 3B and the Isaac/Allison union in the show just felt unholy from start to finish so I decided to give him a boyfriend. Fight me. <3


	7. The Barley Moon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Derek holds a little family reunion with bloody consequences.

“ARE you sure you're up for this?”

Leave it to Scott to show concern for someone else while he was having a chain as thick as his wrist wound tight around his chest. Stiles simply mussed his friend's thick hair and smiled crookedly as he circled the steel support beam at Scott's back with his end of the chain. Scott was already beginning to show signs of the fever though the sun wouldn't be going down for another hour. The wolf skin had begun to creep out of his features around 5 PM, then his temperature had risen a few degrees and he'd begun to perspire in his long sleeved shirt. He'd stripped down to a thin t-shirt before he allowed Stiles and Derek to begin looping the chain around him but there was still a bright sheen collecting on his forehead and dribbling down his temples. His hands were bound behind the beam as well with two pairs of police regulation handcuffs courtesy of the Sheriff.

“I'll cope,” Stiles said. It had become something of a joke for them to say that in these crackpot situations that just kept piling up between them. “More worried about you.”

Scott was caught somewhere between the second skin and his smoother human features. His eyes had started to glow within the last half hour but his teeth hadn't descended, though there was a streak of hair on both sides of his jaw. Stiles hadn't even thought about the fact that Scott had suffered from asthma just a week ago until he saw how his friend's breaths were beginning to deepen as the evening loomed.

It was strange to see Derek again. They'd been avoiding meeting each others' eyes since Stiles had pulled up to the front door of the Hale house in his jeep. Stiles hadn't spoken to him since Friday. He'd argued with Derek the entire way home that afternoon. Shouting had turned to tears again and finally a dolorous goodbye when Derek dropped him off at home. Derek had held his hand for what seemed like an eternity as they sat soundlessly in the driveway before Stiles forced himself to tug away and open the door to leave.

“If you had a chance to see your mother again, would you?” That was what Derek asked him after the contention had died past tears. Stiles didn't even need to think on the answer.

“Not like that.”

No, never like that. He would have never let the houngan practice any more blood magick just to have a few more moments with his mom. His mother would never have wanted that. How could Derek even be considering it after what the witch had done? After he had condemned him so fiercely for the pain his dark arts caused? How far would that bastard have gone if Stiles hadn't been there with the gun? The evil prick would have raped Derek's mind and left him drooling on the floor.

At the very least Derek had conceded that Stiles had been right to come with them to the house. He'd kissed Stiles on the forehead and thanked him, asked him what he would do without him. He didn't ask him where he'd gotten the gun or admonish him for hiding it from him, he'd simply thanked him. And Stiles had been loopy for him then, standing on his toes to kiss him blissfully on the lips and wiping his tears.

But that had been before Derek admitted that he wanted to give Dempsey a chance. Another chance. Before he admitted that he was going to let the witch hold his little séance on the Barley Moon. Stiles had marveled then, a little guiltily, at how survivor's guilt had not only turned the dark man hard. It had broken his logic, leeched him of any sense of self preservation. Stiles didn't doubt at all that Derek cared for him, that Derek wanted to keep him safe. But Derek's lack of worry for his own well-being was heartbreaking. There wasn't a thing Stiles could have said to dissuade him from doing this awful thing.

How different was this from what the witch had done, using his psychometric powers to feel the way the family had died? Derek had asked him what good he'd done with that. Well, what good was it to convene with ghosts who couldn't even speak back? What good had ever come from rousing sleeping dogs, from kicking dead horses?

Stiles hadn't doubted for a second that the witch could do it. Obviously he was capable of doing it. There wasn't much that Stiles wouldn't have believed at that point. After learning of a phoenix on a hidden mountain? He would never be the same knowing that. He was terrified for Derek and for himself, but he had come. Partly because he needed Derek's help in restraining Scott but also because he wasn't going to let Derek do this alone. It didn't matter how pissed off he was, this was going to be the last nail in Derek's coffin if he had to do it with just the damn houngan there to support him.

The witch wasn't interested in Derek's welfare, it didn't matter how much he argued the opposite in that smooth voice that always had a clever reprisal for every condemnation. Stiles had watched Derek break a little more every single day since this entire mess had begun, and while he would have been lying if he said that Derek's feelings for him were doing the dark man any favors he wasn't ready to admit defeat there. They were both so new to this. If he couldn't convince Derek to turn away from letting the witch practice any more dark blood magick then at the very least he could stick his neck out for him again. Who else would? Derek spent so much time wondering how he was going to protect Stiles from all the supernatural insanity falling on their heads that he never thought for a second that he might need protecting himself. Well, maybe Stiles had pushed that point home when he gunned down the houngan without a second's hesitation. Maybe he'd finally convinced Derek that he could actually manage to be something more of an equal.

Derek had texted him twice in the span of two days leading up to the night of the Barley Moon. The first one had just been to thank him again for being there for him. The second had been an apology. Stiles hadn't responded till Sunday afternoon. He'd needed the time to process everything.

He bought a hardback moleskin journal with a thick steel lock on Saturday morning and wrote down everything that he had learned so far, things from werewolf social infrastructure to details he had witnessed while watching Scott transform. He included a crude sketch of the Alpha and colored in the eyes with a red Sharpie, and it was when he began also sketching a replica of Scott's Beta form that he realized he had never seen Derek in the wolf skin. He'd never seen Dempsey in shift either, but he didn't give a damn about him. He did, however, list the few things Derek had taught him about voodoo – the words Loa and Guinee as well as the name Marinette along with a drawing of the skeletal candleholders and the silver knife. Then on the next page he wrote the name of The Fire Mountain – Aag Parvat – and the name of the mystical monastery of Svargh Par Ghar where The Sisters of The White Phoenix tended the Firebird in her nest of spices. Beneath the words “telluric currents” he sketched an enormous oak tree with dark blood spattering its roots and wrote the words “nemeton, druid gathering place, human sacrifice”.

When he was finished he clapped the book shut and made sure it couldn't be opened without the little key which he put onto his key ring next to the key to the jeep. He slipped the book as far under his mattress as he could reach. His father made it home after midnight every night to sleep but they continued to pass each other like ships in the night.

Derek hadn't said much when Scott and Stiles arrived, but he'd obviously been expecting them. He was clad in a new leather jacket – probably bought it while he was getting clothes for Dempsey, Stiles still had his other one in the back seat of the jeep – and a simple white shirt and tight jeans when he rose from his seat on the porch to meet them. Stiles had mumbled some halfhearted greeting and Derek had returned it just as coldly as Stiles helped Scott down out of the car. Scott had been wobbly all day. It must not have been called a fever for nothing.

The basement of the house was accessed by route of a pair of disused cellar doors which Derek had to yank open with some force since the hinges were thickly rusted. They screamed in protest as he wrenched them wide and Scott flinched at the sound, seemingly more and more sensitive to any kind of stimuli the closer they got to nightfall. They'd begun the process of binding him to the beam with few words between them, but as Scott began to prickle in his skin more with the passing of time he'd taken to babbling with Stiles to loose some of the energy that was clearly building in him.

“Seems like you're more worried about him,” Scott said, gesturing his head toward Derek who was coming around with his end of the chain to cross Stiles.

“I'm worried about you both because you're both idiots,” Stiles said, unable to suppress a gentle smile.

“You know I'm right here,” Derek said, giving Stiles an uncertain nudge with his hip. Stiles shot him a resentful look.

“So's he,” he said, gesturing at Scott. “As if I'm worried about either of your feelings. You're both suicidal. Tell Derek about your little pizza date with Allison Argent, Scott.”

Derek growled. “You have got to be kidding me, Scott. Of all the girls, of any girl you could possibly fall for...”

“Dude,” Scott said with a raw laugh, shaking sweat from his hair, “You want to have that conversation before or after you let your psycho ex-boyfriend summon the ghosts of your dead mother and sisters? You know how much Stiles has been freaking out over this?”

“Scott – ”

“Nah, man,” Scott cut off Stiles mid-protest. He almost sounded drunk, just short of slurring his words. “He should hear it. You know Stiles has been losing his mind over you? I don't mean the normal kind of losing his mind where he's doodling your name in his notes in class and checking his phone for you every twenty minutes. I mean he's been worrying himself sick. I don't think I like you very much, Derek. I don't really see what he sees in you.”

Derek made some soft noise of acceptance. “That makes two of us.”

Stiles repressed the urge to stomp his feet. “You're both idiots,” he said again, and he might have pulled his end of the chain a little too tight at that. “And somehow you both ended up being my idiots. Aren't I a lucky guy?”

“You can stay down here with Scott,” Derek said. It wasn't a hostile suggestion. He wasn't sniping back. “You don't have to be there for it. I've put you in enough horrible situations.”

But Stiles had been ready for that sad little pretext. “I'm pretty sure we've covered this already Derek, but I'll say it once more with feeling. If I hadn't been there on Friday night you'd probably be a vegetable by now. That or still healing from having every bone in your body squeezed into powder by crazy mountain monk mind powers. The fact that you think you can control that moron or that he has any control of his own is – you guessed it – idiotic.”

“Seriously,” Scott said, clenching against the chains a little. Stiles put a hand on his chest to soothe him before Derek warned him that it might not be the best idea to get too close. “Stiles said he was... What – possessed by this thing, this tree? The nemeton? How do you know he's not going to just raise the Devil?”

Derek actually laughed derisively. “If Satan wanted to crack open Hell's ceiling and go on a rampage, he wouldn't need Dempsey's help to do it.”

“You're less cute when you're trying to be funny,” Stiles said, rolling his eyes. “You should stick to brooding and threatening to murder people. It's a very attractive look.” He regretted it a bit when Derek looked slightly hurt. Only a bit, though. “Seriously, Derek.”

“Stiles... I don't know what to say to you.” They came to the end of the chain and Derek produced three enormous padlocks from a shelf in the corner. He clicked them shut one after the other over both ends of the chain, securely fastening Scott to the beam. Scott gave a few wiggles to test the strength of the restraints and found he couldn't get enough leverage to so much as flex his arms. “I can't say I'm not scared. I can't say I don't doubt him. But... He's done it before. He does it with his mother all the time. He'll probably call Evangeline tonight to help him with the ritual.”

“Every time you say the word 'ritual' my stomach turns a little,” Stiles said. “Just about as much as it does every time Scott waxes poetic about the way Allison cooed over the little sick puppies and kitties when she picked him up from work. Did you talk to the Doc yet, Scott? Did you tell him you know he's a centuries-old druid priest? Did you ask him if he's ever indulged in a little light bloodletting of his own?”

“Not yet,” Scott said sulkily. “And whatever you two think about her family, I don't think Allison's like that. Stiles, you've met her. How could she be? Have you ever met anybody so sweet and nice in your life?”

“They teach their children to blend in the same as we teach ours,” Derek said, crouching before Scott. “She's young, so I'll give you one thing. She may not have been fully trained yet. But a hunter with half an education will still be able to shoot you six times before you can draw your claws. And if you don't fear her than fear her mother.”

“Yeah, yeah. Stiles showed me.” Derek looked questioningly at Stiles.

“They have professional profiles online,” Stiles explained to Derek. “And I'm not sure what you mean about blending. Allison may be pretty normal but her mom and dad look like the love children of Ted Bundy and Lizzie Borden.”

“At least you know not to underestimate that woman,” Derek said. He rose and offered a hand to Stiles, who reluctantly took it and held it against his chest, looking down. “They call her The Swordmistress for a reason. My people call her The Butcheress.” Scott looked queasy when he said that.

Stiles rested his forehead against Derek's chin and groaned. “When did my life become a fantasy-horror RPG? You people really use pseudonyms like that? Why not just call her Lady Shanks-a-Lot Von Stabinstein? Does she really use a sword? It's the twenty-first century.”

“We can't grow back limbs,” Derek said, stating the obvious. “Bullets are only effective against us if they can manage a head shot. Or if they coat them in certain poisons, but even then igniting gunpowder will usually burn off most of it before the bullet ever hits its mark. Some of them prefer to use bows still. It's a lot more effective to dip an arrowhead in poison. Even if arrows are a little slower and less accurate than a gun, it only takes one coated in the right substance to bring down the most powerful werewolf so the hunter can close in to finish it off. As a bonus we can't heal properly until the arrow's extracted, so they use titanium shafts that are harder to break and barbed tips.”

“That's easily the most fucked-up, medieval thing I've heard all week, and that's kind of saying something,” Stiles said, putting his arms around Derek and pressing his face into his neck to inhale his clove-wrapped scent without even thinking about it. He imagined Derek pin-cushioned in poison arrows and wanted to cry.

“Call it the second most,” Derek said. Stiles was annoyed at how contented he felt when Derek wrapped his arms around his back as well. “Because Victoria Argent likes to skin her kills.” Both Stiles and Scott shuddered.

“You give that some thought on your next date with Lady Von Stabinstein II,” Stiles said to Scott, who remained silent. He heard the chains rustling and extricated himself from Derek to check on him.

It seemed the time had come for Scott. Stiles checked his phone when he saw that Scott was gasping his breaths, his fangs grown down past his bottom lip at last. It was just past seven-thirty PM but he could see through the seams between the cellar doors that the sun was done with them for the day. Scott's eyes had taken on a brighter tawny glow in the darkness of night.

“You doing OK, buddy?”

“Yeah... 'M good...” Scott mumbled, his voice deepened. He was slurring fully now, his long tongue snaking out to lick the sides of his mouth. Stiles wondered if Derek's tongue grew that long in shift and he felt his face heat a little at the implication. “Don't, uh... Stiles, could y' get me some water? 'S really hot.”

“I got you, dude.” Stiles slung his bag down and produced a bottle of water, one of ten bottles that he'd packed for the occasion along with a potpourri of granola bars and fruit snacks. He uncapped the bottle and held it to Scott's lips. Derek hovered close, his hand on Stiles' shoulder.

“Stiles, be careful.”

“He's not gone yet,” Stiles said, tipping the bottle so Scott could drink. Scott emptied the bottle in a few prodigious gulps. “More, dude?”

“Yeah, please,” Scott panted. “Fuck, 's so hot.”

Stiles looked up at Derek with distress as he put the second bottle to Scott's lips. He almost thought he could see a thin steam coming off of him in the cool basement. “Is this normal?” Derek nodded.

“It's going to be rough. The first few hours will be the hardest, but his temperature should drop a little after midnight. Stiles, Jesus, be careful.”

Scott had snapped his teeth a little, driveling water down his chin. But he didn't try to lunge at the trembling hand holding the bottle. Stiles bravely fought from recoiling.

“Scott? You still here, man?”

“Yeah, yeah. Still here,” Scott said, his voice a husky whisper and his eyes lidded. “Sorry. 'M Sorry.”

“More?”

“Nah, 'M good. Thanks, man.”

Derek pulled Stiles back a bit and knelt beside him, putting the back of his hand on Scott's dripping forehead, causing the wolf-boy to growl. “You're holding up pretty well. My first moon I was already raving at this point. My mom had to sedate me.”

“Wish you'd told me that was an option,” Stiles said, watching Scott struggle against the chains a bit with a pained expression.

“Takes a pretty strong sedative,” Derek said. “Our metabolisms run fast in the wolf skin, so we burn through most drugs fast. And I wasn't prepared to show up at Deaton's asking him for favors. That's on me.”

“What would the Doc have had?” Stiles asked. “Some kind of magickal root extract? Goblin piss?”

“Ketamine hydrochloride,” Derek said. “A large dose would've put him out for at least the first hour or so then left him groggy till well after midnight.”

“Use... Use it on the dogs,” Scott said weakly.

“Hey, don't try to talk, buddy,” Stiles said. He removed a small terry cloth hand towel from the side pocket of his bag and poured the rest of the water bottle over it before holding it to Scott's forehead. Derek put a restraining hand on Scott's collar. “So, next full moon we're definitely shooting him up with enough ketamine to send him to La-La-Land, right? I don't like seeing him like this.”

Derek gave him an affectionate look and Stiles headbutted his shoulder tenderly, forgetting temporarily that he was furious with him. “I'll do the best I can,” Derek said. “Deaton will already know what's happened to him. I'm a little pissed that he didn't offer to help outright. It's irresponsible of him.”

“I'll talk to the Doc myself,” Stiles said. “If he could've helped and he didn't I'm definitely going to be having words with him.”

Scott convulsed a little and Derek pulled Stiles back against the far wall.

“Derek, for fuck's sake – ”

“Stiles, look at him. He's gone for the night.”

He was beginning to hate these instances where Derek was right.

Scott had that predatory look about him again, same as the first time on the lacrosse field. He loosed a feral snarl just as Derek looped an arm around Stiles' trunk to keep him from moving back toward his friend, as if Derek had stolen his quarry. As if he'd scavenged his prey. His eyes were afire, two sun-bright orbs in the dark basement. When he strained against the chains this time it was with violent frustration, gnashing his jaws. The sweat was pouring off his face and puddling on his belly.

“When's, uh...” Stiles' mouth was dry. He opened another bottle and swigged from it. “When's the witching hour? How long do we have till Dempsey gets back? Where even is he?”

“He kept a cache of things buried out in the woods,” Derek said. “Ritual objects and sentimental things that he wanted to hide before he left home. He'll be awhile. The witching hour begins at three AM and ends at four, so he'll be back a little before then to prepare. His repository's stashed way out there, miles out in the deep forest. I'm the only person who knows where it was, but honestly it's been so long I barely remember myself. Here, sit with me.”

He pulled Stiles down gently to sit between his thighs, braiding their fingers together on Stiles' lap and kissing him on the back of his head. Stiles exhaled in sweet relief at the simple contact.

“Try to talk to him,” Derek said. Every time one of them opened their mouths to speak Scott reacted vehemently. Stiles heard a slight metallic groaning and wondered if it was the chains, the beam, or the padlocks being tested by Scott's maddened strength. “Doesn't matter what you say.”

“I... I'm not sure it'll do any good,” Stiles said, anxiously squeezing Derek's hands tight. His own palms were slick with sweat but he wouldn't have let go for anything. “Look at him. God, Scott...” There was a bulging lattice of veins throbbing in the young wolf-man's neck and at his temples.

“Can't hurt to try, can it?” Derek leaned forward to kiss him on the cheek this time and Stiles' lips curled happily despite everything. “We've got the time.”

So Stiles talked. He was hoarse with trepidation at first, but the words came easier as the minutes ticked painfully by.

He reminisced about the first time they went camping in Scott's backyard. They'd been seven years old. Stiles had fallen on his face at school that morning and knocked out one of his front teeth so Melissa was letting them sleep outside in a tent and sleeping bags. Scott had colored in one of his own incisors with a black crayon so that Stiles wouldn't be self conscious about the whistling gap in his mouth. When Melissa had come out to bring them a plate of microwave s'mores she'd taken one look at Scott's wax-darkened grin and eaten his half of the s'mores right in front of him as punishment. It wasn't a complete loss, though. Stiles had happily shared his own with him.

Then there was the first day of middle school. Stiles had practically been living with Scott at the time while his dad ping-ponged between work and sitting in his mother's room at the hospital to read Home and Garden to her between blood draws and MRIs scans. Melissa had taken them both school shopping together, buying Stiles a brand new Batman backpack out of her own pocket even though Scott had suggested he might be too old for it at eleven.

“You remember that, loser?” Stiles asked the baying hound-thing wearing his best friend's face. “You always just wanted to fit in. Such a loser.” Derek had a hand in his hair, stroking his scalp and trailing his nose slowly up and down his neck. Doing everything in his power to quell the breezy sadness that must have been leaking out of Stiles' pores. “Just wanted to be like the other kids and make friends. You know I always felt like I was holding you back? Your sad spaz buddy ruining all your chances to kick it with the cool kids.”

Derek traced a reassuring finger along the parallel white scars running up and down Stiles' right arm. The ugly old marks were all but invisible beneath the fine light hair of his forearms, but he still shrank a little when Derek touched them.

“It's OK,” said Derek in his ear at barely a whisper. “Keep talking. You're beautiful, keep talking. There's nothing wrong with you.” Derek lifted his arm and kissed up the length of it to his wrist and back to his elbow.

Stiles turned to kiss him on the lips, surging into him. “You know, that scary sour face you put on when someone else is around only makes it that much sweeter when you say shit like that to me.”

“I meant it,” Derek said. He was hovering half a breath's length from Stiles' lips with their foreheads pressed together, the warm air escaping his mouth stale and smoky. Stiles was getting euphorically accustomed to the way he smelled and tasted. “Keep talking. He might come around. You're doing good.” So Stiles talked on, rambling for what seemed like hours. The dust of sleep was settling over him even as the young werewolf in chains howled and roared from the other side of the room. He fought the weariness as well as he could, wishing he'd thought to take an Adderall.

“You remember when I got the call about my mom? It was the second day of school. Your mom came and picked us both up in the middle of the day and you sat with me in her room. She hung on with that machine breathing for her until almost midnight, you remember? Near the end Melissa made you wait at the nurse's station so I could be alone with her. I'd been a mess for weeks and weeks because every time I went to see her I had to remind her who I was. But right near the end – right before she flat-lined – she looked me dead in the eyes, and she said my name. And she smiled.” Stiles felt Derek gorging him with soft caresses, inhaling at the nape of his neck as if he thought he could pipe clean the sadness wafting out of his pores. Scott snapped his jaws and yowled. “My dad was on a call, couldn't make it in time to be with her. I was mad at him for the longest time for that. I used to want to be a cop like my dad, remember? But I think I changed my mind after that night. Guess I was being too hard on him. It was the only night that week that he hadn't been in that room with her.

“You know, we never really talked about the gay thing? I'm kind of glad for that. Kind of grateful. I already have to figure out how to tell my dad. I'm grateful that you just sort of fell into stride with it. Guess you knew for awhile, anyway. How could you not? We spend every waking moment together. You're a good friend, Scott. Despite the fact that you're a fucking idiot sometimes.”

Stiles yawned and rubbed a forearm across his eyes, leaning back further against Derek. “This isn't going too well.”

“Doesn't look like it,” Derek said. Scott was no longer raising quite a ruckus but it seemed that was because he had chosen to devote his energy solely to railing against his bonds. His face was still a mask of sheer lunacy, his snarls low and vindictive. If anything as time had passed he had begun to appear more bloodthirsty than before. “I'm sorry.”

Stiles shook his head. “Don't be. We'll figure out the anchor business later. We'll just be here tonight to keep an eye on him. Stop being so damn apologetic all the time. Much as you want to believe this is all your fault, it's not.”

“I'm not just sorry for Scott,” Derek said against his ear. “Or for all the things you've had to go through in the last week.”

“What else is there?” Stiles asked.

Derek considered his words before he answered. “I'm sorry I'm weak. I'm sorry I'm letting Dempsey do this tonight. Sorry that I didn't even have to think about it.”

“...I understand,” Stiles said. He'd lost one person. Derek had lost everyone. How could he not understand? “Much as I want to keep on being pissed at you, I get it. I couldn't get my dad's spare piece again tonight but I'm going to be there again to make sure he doesn't try to hurt you again. Someone has to.”

“Not sure what I would do without you,” Derek said again. “I missed you, you know.”

“And here I was trying to convince you we could take it slow if you needed to,” Stiles said, laughing softly through another yawn. “Guess you didn't need to.”

Derek rumbled happily against his back. “Always have to have the last word, don't you?”

“Should get that t-shirt made too,” Stiles said. “I missed you too, Derek. I'm sorry, too. I'm sure you needed someone these last two days.”

“I'll always give you time when you need it.”

Stiles was blearily tempted to ask him if that meant he was in this for the long haul. But that was just the descending sleep talking. He leaned forward a bit as Derek stripped off his jacket and laid it over his chest.

“Get some rest, Stiles. I'll wake you up when it's time.” Stiles couldn't argue with that. Even with a raving werewolf chained twenty feet in front of him there was something about close proximity to Derek that lulled him into a ungrudging somnolence. It had to be Derek, he never got tired this easily.

“One more kiss before I go,” he mumbled, but he was out already by the time Derek pressed their lips together chastely.

 

***

 

STILES had a rather strange dream. Somehow he knew it was a dream when he came to within it. The steady pulse of Derek's heartbeat was a ground against lies and disbelief, and Stiles could hear it all around him like he was stretching himself inside a living womb. He was conscious of himself and able to make decisions and form thoughts.

He was in a long white room. The floor was white like sun-bleached bones and so was the ceiling, one connected to the other by rows upon rows of stark white pillars. They were endless. There were no walls to speak of, or if there were they were too far away for him to see. Whether the pillars were of stone or painted wood, he couldn't say. When he took a few tentative steps forward to put a hand on one of them it seemed to shift away from him like a living thing. No, the pillar itself didn't move. Rather, the floor and ceiling expanded to push his surroundings further from his searching fingers.

Stiles didn't know if he wandered the expanse of this foreign place for minutes or days. Either his stride was growing shorter with every step he took or the endless room was still widening around him. It seemed the ceilings got higher the further he walked on, or perhaps he was shrinking to the size of an atom while the world as he now knew it pulsated larger and larger around him in time to the rhythm of Derek's beating heart. Soon he felt less a person and more a whisper, a grain of sand in a yawning desert. His mouth went dry as he rambled for what felt like miles, what could have been an spread of continents. His limbs were wreathed in fatigue, his eyes burning in the raw white light.

He wasn't sure if he imagined the massive cloven stump when he came upon it. He supposed he was imagining all of this – it was, after all, a dream. His existence had been diminished to this simple forward motion, calling Derek's name into the emptiness as his heartbeat throbbed around him. Derek's name was all Stiles could think to speak, more prominent in his psyche than his own name or those of his family or friends. That stable pumping rhythm.

The fox came before the tree. The fox led him to the stump. At first he was sure it was simply a mirage within the dream. He had gone so long without seeing anything but searing white, then the lithe little creature had simply tiptoed out of the corner of his field of vision. Seemingly out of nowhere.

It wasn't a typical rust-red fox. Its boots were black like a typical fox and its bottlebrush tail was tipped in white, but its coat was tinged a deep charcoal gray. Stiles knew that there were gray foxes in existence, but that specific breed tended to be striped red beneath their drab pelts. He'd seen one or two gray foxes pass through Alan Deaton's clinic after being hit by a car or escaping the talons of a swooping bird of prey. This creature was not an individual of that specific breed. It was darker, dark as soot. Dark as night with no stripe of red within its smooth thick pelt. Its eyes were glowing lantern-yellow like the leer of a hungry werewolf. It stood out like a blot of ink in the bright white room without walls.

After standing in silent awe of the animal for God knew how long, Stiles took a tentative step toward it. The fox had frozen on its haunches and cocked its head severely till its inquisitive gaze was almost upside down. It was staring him dead in the eyes, completely unafraid. Its eyes were scorching beams, fiercely alert – evocative of some quickening intelligence. Stiles was afraid for a moment that the animal was going to pounce at him. He could see the tips of two dagger-sharp fangs poking fearlessly from the end of its tapering muzzle. But it never showed a mote of aggression.

The fox arched its head just slightly, blinking twice, then turned tail and began to pad slowly away. Stiles was compelled to follow in its stealthy little footsteps at a distance. What else could he do? He hadn't been expecting to encounter another living thing in this horrifying white room, this gaping empty world. The fox had beckoned for him. That was all that quick blinking motion could have been. This wasn't real, none of this was real. Stiles knew he was going to wake up soon. Derek was going to kiss him awake. Derek was stalwart and good like that. So what could the harm have been in following the Stygian-coated creature through the landscape of his dream? Stiles had experienced conscious dreams like this before, though not since he was a child. Not since long before his mother had died. There couldn't have been any harm in following the avuncular little fox.

The stump effervesced out of nothing. It wasn't there and then it was, just like when he had lit the dark red candle in the witch's room and the sleeping houngan had wafted out of nothing in the rumpled dirty sheets.

It was wider than his jeep, almost a perfect circle. The stump had been cleaved haphazardly half a foot from its huge sprawling roots and the rings rippling out from its center where once it had been a yearling sprout were too many to count. How the roots were piercing the hard white floor was beyond him, but of course it was a dream so he didn't think much on it. The dark aged wood was the color of dark beer, bruised and chipped where the swing of an ax had hewn through the myriad layers of the mammoth trunk.

The fox had lighted atop the stump before Stiles could catch up to it. It was laid dead center on the remnant of the ancient tree like a grinning knight at the nucleus of a chessboard. It really was grinning, wasn't it? Its maw was drawn up at the corners right beneath its glowing eyes, exposing a glittering array of needle teeth. Were those keen little fangs made of silver? No, as he stole closer and closer they took on more of the appearance of polished steel, as if the animal had a serrated trap for a mouth. He thought he heard a deep lilting voice call his name, but he turned and turned on the spot to find no one there at all. He was alone here, just him and the fox. And yet...

And yet the stump had a presence all its own. It was giving off a low hum, something Stiles thought he could only hear in his head. Almost like the buzzing white noise that he had encountered in the witch's bedroom. As he approached and knelt beside the stump he dared for a moment to take his eyes off the smiling gray fox and fix them on the winding roots, caked in a brackish dried sludge where they pierced the nondescript white floor. He knew it had to be blood. He was compelled by some secret yearning to reach for the roots, to fleck off the coarse dried blood and grind it between his fingers.

The fox had its wicked steel teeth in him before he ever touched the gnarled roots.

Stiles yelped at the sudden pain and instinctively yanked his arm back, but this only caused the animal to sink its fangs deeper, tearing the flesh of his hand. He felt the teeth scrape the bones in the back of his hand, lacerating the veins and causing blood to spurt from the wounds. Its teeth were hot like iron brands, and though at first he only felt the puncturing bite itself he soon discovered the unnatural heat was spreading through his hand and up his wrist. It began to burn as if he'd thrust his forearm into an oven, and his struggle bore a scream as the fire climbed his skin and pierced his bones.

The fox didn't make a sound, didn't growl or snarl one bit. It merely held tight to him, fangs meeting beneath his skin, as he shook and shook and slammed its skinny little body made of rubber and sticks against the stump. The fire burned on within his flesh, spreading under his chest and setting his lungs alight so that he exhaled a stream of ugly gray smoke as he cried out. Then the smoke gave way to a billow of yellow flame that issued not only from his open mouth, wide in his scream, but from his flared nostrils and the sockets of his eyes. He belched the fire and it did him no harm, didn't blacken his skin or melt his eyes, but he could feel it burn. His windpipe was a bellows, his vision a holocaust. His body filled with fire, fire became his creaking limbs and organs. His heart stopped beating and instead roared and crackled in his breast. His guts twisted and combusted like dry leaves shriveling in flame, turning over into themselves until they were dust. And then the dust too that had once been his winding intestines was eaten by the conflagration and became less than ash, less than air.

All the while the fox held its silent grip, though its own eyes had begun to burn along with Stiles'. As if it were feeding off the fire within him, lighting its own blaze by the fire of his pain. Its polished steel teeth sank deeper and deeper the more it burned, the more he burned. Till there was nothing left of him but fire. Till he was a torch beside the cloven stump, though no matter how hot he burned the fire could not touch the remains of the felled old tree.

Stiles laid hands on the stump in desperation, blind with pain, and the fire whisked away from his knuckles and receded from his forearms. He mumbled a prayer of thanks to no god in particular. The fox worried and ripped at his hand, but he persisted through a scream. He climbed up over the corpse of the long-dead oak and the rhythm of Derek's heartbeat quickened all around him as the flames sputtered from his shoulders and shrank in his belly.

He was naked and heaving as he laid himself atop the stump on his stomach, his arms and legs splayed yet unable still to reach the ends of the trunk, so monumental was its girth. He calmed his breathing by steadying it against both Derek's beating heart and the low electric hum coming from the heart of the tree beneath his center, and though there remained a licking of flames along his snaking spine he focused only on casting out the pain. Casting out the fire.

Now the fox did make a noise. It would not let go of him for anything but it made a low retching noise that spoke miles of defeat and frustration. The fire was dying. It was embers within Stiles' churning gut where his organs had begun to grow anew from a pile of ash. There was no more inferno, no more holocaust. The fire had gone out in the fox's eyes, and the creature whined and whined, robbed of its sustenance in his suffering. But it would not let him go. It hurt less than before but the animal bit deeper, shaking its head and hissing through its shining steel teeth. As if it were trying to worm its way beneath his flesh to taste the last of the glowing embers within him.

The embers were a comfort in some strange way, a speechless warmth against his hard-wracked soul. The fire could have burned for years or seconds, he couldn't be sure. One moment he had been made of suffering, the next dowsed in ancient serenity as the stump of the magnificent giant oak beneath him passed some quiet strength to him through the surface of his skin. That strength kept the embers lit, and their warmth was not for the fox with its evil glittering teeth. The fox could not break him open to sip from that fount within him. But it had tasted the fire and it wanted more. So it kept its teeth hooked fast and waited with the dour patience of a predator, anticipating the moment when the fire would flare again.

After all, Stiles couldn't cleave to the nemeton forever. There was a voice overhead again, calling his name. Except that it wasn't the same voice as before, not that deep musical tone. This voice was familiar, a voice that evoked feelings of deep affection and loyalty within him. He wondered why the fox had led him here to the broken tree, this ancient place of worship, and why it hadn't fed on him where he couldn't seek shelter in the nemeton's magick.

It could only mean one thing. The fox hadn't known. The tree was felled and dead, the fox hadn't known there was even a drop of magick left in the cloven stump. But what did this matter to Stiles? What did any of it mean at all?

What else? He had been brought here as a sacrifice.

 

***

 

“THERE has to be something you can do.”

“He'll come to. It's no ordinary nightmare, Sugah. Something's got its hooks in him.”

“What the hell does that mean? This is your fault, isn't it? I know this is your fault somehow. You have to do something. His heart's going a mile a minute. He's dehydrated. Stiles. Stiles, you have to wake up. Please, wake up. Oh, God, please don't do this to me.”

“Derek, he'll come to. Ah don't know what this is but he's fighting it. Ah can't... Ah don't know why, but Ah can't get in his head anymore. But Ah can feel him fighting it hard. He's tough. Give him time.”

“Goddamn it, all that power and you can't even do something to wake him up!? Demps, please! He's going to die! Feel his forehead, he's burning up! He's going to die if you don't do something! I know you did this somehow and I know you can undo it. Help him! Please!”

“Derek, he has to wake on his own. If Ah wake him forcibly it'll leave him vulnerable. Ah felt the pall shifting when Ah walked down here. Something parted the veil. Something came through by light of the moon. It's a powerful time for spirits.”

“Then exorcise him! Damn it, you've done it before! Get this thing out of him before it kills him!”

“He has to push it out himself! Ah can help a little but he has to do the heavy lifting on his own. Fever's going down. Heart rate's steadying. You hear that? Temperature's dropping real fast, he'll be about normal soon. He's fighting. He's going to come out of this. Just hold onto him. He'll come through, just you watch. Just keep saying his name. Guide him back. He's giving this thing the fight of its life. You'd almost think he was exorcising it all on his own.”

Press of a cool hand on his cheek, tears falling on his lips.

“Stiles? Stiles, please come back. Please wake up. Please, I need you. Stiles, I need you. I can't do this tonight without you. I can't do any of this without you, you have to wake up. Fight this thing, Stiles. Push it back to whatever Hell it came from, you're stronger than this. Please, come back.”

There was a gentle wind. Scent of cayenne and duckweed. Sage burning, pungent.

“By mah power, Ah cast you out. Ah cast you out, thing with teeth. By mah power Ah part the pall again. Thief of flesh, thief of souls. Ah cast you out.”

“Stiles, you're doing so good. Your heart's slowing down, your pulse sounds perfectly normal again. All you have to do now is wake up, OK? Demps is working on it, he's pulling this thing out of you. But it'll be easier if you wake up. Please, Stiles, just wake up. Come back to me, I just found you.”

“Ah won't be denied, craven thing. Shadow thing. Demon thing from beyond the pall. This flesh is not yours. This flesh was never yours. See how he defies you? See how even in sleep he defies your teeth? This flesh was never yours! Ah cast you out. Ah cast you out!”

Snarl of a werewolf in chains, creaking bonds, steel beam whining.

“Stiles, you're doing so damn good. Just a little more, OK? Keep fighting, you can do it. If anybody can do this than you can. Stiles, I'm right here. You can do this. Just come back. Come back to me, Stiles.”

Eyelashes fluttering, vision out of focus. Deep intake of breath from above him. Choked sobbing.

“Derek?”

Crush of arms around him, tears in his hair. Derek saying his name over and over. A witch chuckling incredulously, blowing out a bundle of smoking sage. Voice like honey and bourbon.

“Well, aren't you something, Stiles Stillinski?”

 

***

 

DEMPSEY went to work on putting a powerful charm against harm on Stiles before Derek would allow him to prepare for the séance. Derek had been prepared to abandon the ritual entirely, but surprisingly enough Stiles had been the one to convince him otherwise.

“We've come this far. He's got everything he needs,” Stiles said. “I know how much this means to you, Derek.”

“It doesn't mean a damn thing if it puts you in danger of being possessed again,” Derek insisted. “You didn't have a dream about the nemeton for nothing, Stiles. People don't just dream about that thing.”

“But why was it cut down?” Dempsey murmured curiously as he anointed Stiles forehead with a vibrant red paste mixed from a mishmash of squashed flower pods and saliva. “You don't think Alan would have been so stupid as to cut it down?”

“What the hell does it matter?” Derek snapped at him. His face was still pale from worry. He hadn't let go of Stiles' hand for a second since he'd awakened from the nightmare.

“It matters plenty. That tree isn't just a beacon, it's a sentinel,” Dempsey said, nearly just as cross as Derek was. “What if he really did it? There are things buried in the roots of that tree, Derek. Old things. Evil things. You know that. Ah can't begin to wonder at what would happen if the magick of it were disrupted in such a way.”

“Nothing trapped beneath that tree will be able to escape if there isn't magick to unlock the seal,” Derek argued. “If he cut it down then he was doing it to trap whatever's buried under it there forever. Good riddance.”

“Then why did some malicious spirit lead Stiles there in a dream?” Dempsey countered, painting a swath of curling symbols down over Stiles' neck and shoulders. His shirt was slung over Derek's arm so the witch could work. “No such thing as forever trapped, certainly not for a demon or a specter. You're letting your emotions get the better of you. You're not looking at this clearly.”

“You're the only one not seeing clearly,” Derek said. “Don't think anybody thinks any of this is a coincidence.”

Dempsey snorted. “What, because Ah came home? Ah come home and suddenly your young man here finds himself possessed by a spirit from beyond the pall?” They'd briefly explained the pall to Stiles – the veil between the world of spirits and the fleshly world. An incorporeal wall that separated two places that existed in the same space. “You think all the town's going to start going into fits and speaking in tongues? Don't be naive. You think something like that could possess just anyone?”

“I was speaking in tongues?”

“No, you weren't. Don't listen to him.”

Stiles couldn't quite read what was going on in Derek's head from the expression on his face. A spark of horror had flickered across his eyes for just a moment when Dempsey spoke those words – “You think something like that could possess just anyone?” But he had masked it instantly.

“Ah'll figure this out after,” Dempsey said, satisfied with his work in painting runes on Stiles skin and laying down the bowl he'd used to mix the colored ointment. “No demon crosses over on mah watch. If Ah had been here when it started Ah could have stopped it before it got that far. But it stands that the damn druid isn't doing his job. He's so busy playing veterinarian he's forgotten what his station dictates. Damn fool. This should never have happened. Ah'll have his balls for this.”

Derek had called for Dempsey in the night when Stiles began convulsing in his sleep. He had raised his head and howled his name on the wind till the witch appeared. Stiles was still groggy from the experience. He couldn't muster the strength to be inquisitive about any of this. He took in their words and leaned on Derek as the houngan worked his charm, pressing leaves into his flesh and chanting softly in Latin beneath his words.

“A creature that steals flesh with teeth of steel,” he muttered. “A bite that started a fire inside. What manner of Hellspawn, I wonder? What manner of Hellspawn takes the form of a fox? Couldn't have been a fire kitsune. Doesn't make any damn sense, that's not how fire kitsune feed. But of course it was a dream. So it was all just a metaphor for what was occurring under your skin. Still, kitsune don't possess people like that. Kitsune have their own flesh. Bet Ah know who Ah could ask about this.”

Derek cut in. “The Yukimuras haven't lived here in a long time, Demps. Nobody knows where they disappeared to.”

Kitsune? Yukimuras? The first was a word, the second a name. Both were Japanese by the sound of them. Stiles was too worn to press for answers just now. He felt like he was existing between places himself, like he had been yanked half through the pall by the evil thing that had sank its teeth into him. He still felt the sting of the teeth in his palm.

“Bet Ah could find them if Ah tried,” Dempsey said. “They'll want to know about this. Noshiko was a lady of great power, she'll be able to help.”

“Help with what, Demps? He drove the thing out. Your charm will hold it back. What help do we need from the Yukimuras?”

“You want to bet that thing will leave him alone now that it's gotten a taste of that fire, Derek? You willing to risk that? Even Ah'm not willing to risk that. Get ahold of yourself and look at the pieces of the puzzle, then look at the big picture. The thing conjures a vision of the nemeton and leads him there because it thinks the magick's gone. If Alan really did cut down the tree than it would be a good assumption to make. Then the fox creature draws blood from Stiles and lights him up like a magickal Roman candle. A sacrifice made in a place of sacrifice. It feeds on the fire because it wants to pour that magick back into the nemeton, not knowing that the tree still has a spark all its own. Not knowing the tree would protect him. It wanted to power the nemeton so it could free itself from under the roots and instead it gave Stiles the tools with which to protect himself. So now the thing knows.”

“Knows what?” Derek asked. “You're not making any sense.”

“It knows that the nemeton still has magick within it! Stiles here tapped into it. Whether or not it was a dream, he touched the nemeton's core and it gave him shelter. Which means he's – ”

“Stop,” Derek snapped. “Stop, I don't believe you. Just shut up.” He had grown even paler.

“It's going to come back for him, you damn fool! Mah charms only have so much power. Ah can't fight a thing like that without more knowledge. We have to go find Noshiko. We have to put a name to this thing. Ah can do battle with it once Ah know its name. More importantly Ah can teach him to do battle with it!”

“You're not teaching him a goddamned thing! How dare you!?”

“What does it mean I am?” Stiles asked. His voice was raw and broken. Scott, still rattling his chains, roared at the sound of his voice. Stiles had an inkling of the answer, but he wanted to hear it. Not from Derek, but from the witch. “What am I? You said it couldn't have possessed just anyone.”

“You're nothing that he says you are,” Derek said. “He doesn't know anything. We can't be sure of any of this.”

“Derek, it tried to ignite his spark! Successfully, Ah might add. It tried to steal magick from him! Whatever the hell kind of resentment you hold against me and mah power, don't let it cloud your judgment. Any creature that can blow on a dead spark and cause it to burn that bright can't be underestimated.”

Magick? Stiles didn't have a dint of magick within him to steal. What magick? What spark?

“Look inside yourself, Stiles Stillinski. The fox thing left the fire burning, didn't it? You can feel it still.”

Derek was looking at Stiles with more sadness than he had ever seen in his deep-ocean stare. Like he had lost him forever to something bigger than the both of them.

Stiles didn't have much room for doubt remaining. He could feel it. Warmth against his soul.

“Embers...” he said quietly, breathlessly. Derek squeezed his hands and looked away from him. Stiles wasn't sure if he was hurt or sickened or both. Dempsey simply nodded.

“Embers from a dead spark. What is it the big hairy guy says in that movie about the little British boy with the lightning bolt on his head?”

Stiles almost laughed. “'You're a wizard, Harry.' You're serious, aren't you?” He looked to Derek, who was avoiding his gaze still. “He's serious.”

But Derek turned instead to Dempsey without answering Stiles. His face was a mask of pure rage. “Was this what got in your head? Because you drew power from the nemeton? Did you wake this thing up?”

“If you're looking for someone to blame you're looking in the wrong place,” Dempsey said. “Things like this don't sleep. They wait. They lay awake and bide their time. Believe me or don't, it ain't no thing to me. You can blame me if you want. Ah'll give you one thing, it very well could be that the thing tried to get its hooks into me first. But it was driven out twice, and quite easily. It's weak. It's been locked down there beneath the nemeton for God knows how long. It needed a more receptive target than a powerful houngan, so it tried to awaken the potential for magick in a boy who never received the training he needed to be the sorcerer he should have been. It would have found him sooner or later.”

Stiles' stomach felt light at that word. Sorcerer. He looked down at his hands in Derek's, still quivering a bit. It seemed his palms were warmer than before. Derek must have been able to feel that.

“I can't believe this,” Derek said, spitting the words. “This is bullshit. This is complete bullshit. What even... What is he? What kind of sorcerer? God damn this town, of course you would be.” He kissed both of Stiles hands and finally locked eyes with him. “You don't have to be anything you don't want to be. If the spark died long ago then you don't have to be anything more than exactly what you are right now.”

Stiles kissed him on the lips to comfort him. He could feel Derek teetering on hysterics. “One thing at a time, OK? Let's just... Christ, I don't know where to begin.”

“The fire is a big indicator, isn't it?” Dempsey said. “You can guess what he is, Derek. But Stiles, Ah don't know if Ah could ever teach you to use it. The fox thing might have lit the spark but you're nearly grown. You should have been trained younger. Much younger.”

“What about the fire?” Stiles asked. “What does it indicate? What does it make me?”

Derek sighed hugely, his shoulders rising and falling with the gesture. “Goddamn it. You're an elemancer. He's an elemancer, isn't he?”

Dempsey nodded. “Keeper of all flame, lord of the rivers and seas. Son of the earth and stone and brother to lightning. A mage made for battle, for destruction and chaos. A sorcerer who wields the elements themselves like a sword and shield. A sorcerer who can turn the Earth itself against his foes.”

“A sorcerer made for keeping balance, too,” Derek said assuredly as Stiles gasped. “A mage who makes things grow, who can give life as much as take it. But you're none of these things yet, Stiles. You don't have to be any of these things. You very well might not be able to be.” He said it hopefully.

Dempsey reached into the satchel at his hip and produced a single dusty acorn after searching around the rattling contents for a time. He offered it to Stiles on his palm. “Whisper some sweet nothings to it,” he said. “Tell it to grow. Maybe it'll listen.”

“Demps, you can't be serious.”

“Well, it can't hurt to try can it? Stiles, you opened mah book, didn't you? Don't answer, Ah know you opened mah book. Mah grimoire, passed to me from mah mother and her mother and hers and hers. You couldn't read it, but you came close. Didn't you? Only a mystic can read the words in that book, and you came damn close. Ah should have known.”

Stiles looked at the acorn, his brow furrowed in skepticism. An elemancer? What would he have been if he had ever received training? Could he have thrown fire from his palms? Made swells of lake shore waves? Could he have called down the lightning like Zeus immortal?

Could he have put this acorn into the soil and simply said, “Grow,” and watched as it sprouted greenery to pierce the earth and reach for the sky? It was ridiculous to even think it. He might well have still been dreaming. And yet...

And yet as he pondered these waxing, impossible thoughts he saw the acorn split just slightly at its pointed tip. It made the slightest little sound, a harmless little pop, and simply peeled open at the end. Stiles gasped again and Derek's hands went limp with defeat. Dempsey looked smug.

“Ain't quite a mighty oak, but look at that,” the witch said, holding the seed between two fingers with obvious pride. “No sprout just yet, but just look at that, son of the earth and stone. You did that. It's a start. The spark is lit. Ah don't think those embers will ever go out again. And you with no training, no inkling of what you really were for your entire life. It's a hell of a start. Ah think that evil creature better watch its damn back.”

 

***

 

THE witch had pulled one of the great long tables from the halls intersecting the foyer of the Hale house out into the sprawling backyard. The time was fifty minutes after two, the swaying leaves of the arroyo willows playing a sweet rhythm in the breeze. Most of the trees had been stripped by the encroaching autumn but the willows resisted.

Stiles had done everything but told Derek to go to Hell when he'd insisted he stay in the basement with Scott for this part of the night. He wasn't going to miss this for anything, not after learning what he had learned about himself in wake of that horrific dream. His mind kept wandering back to the pain of those teeth in his hand, the fire burning him from the inside out.

He wanted to learn. Stiles had settled on that the moment it sank into his head that he wasn't dreaming, that this wasn't some illusion. That it wasn't some trick or lie on the witch's part that had caused the acorn to split. The houngan had sworn on his mother's bones that he'd had no part in that, that Stiles had done it all on his own. Dempsey had explained that his own magick dealt more in the realm of death, that his powers were more adept for everything but giving life. He could commune with spirits and call them forth and banish them, but he could not make an acorn split into the beginnings of new life. So Stiles wanted to learn. He wanted to learn how to throw fire from his palms and make swells in a lake.

Derek was distraught and Stiles knew precisely why. Magick had taken away his Dempsey when they were both younger men. Magick had pulled his love and his brother away to the other side of the planet, and then he'd lost everything else in one fell swoop. One night of horror, of fire and screams. The person he loved had chosen magick and power over him.

Well, Stiles wasn't going to do that. He made sure that Derek knew it. Even as the witch bustled about readying the ritual in earshot, he said the words to Derek fearlessly; “I will never abandon you like he did.” He wasn't sure if it did any good at all, but he had to say it.

Dempsey had set a simple black iron pot on top of a portable butane stove-top range at the center of the long table. The gas was lit on the range and the pot was bubbling already with some viscous, nondescript substance. Before it he had set the curved silver knife with its carvings of wolves' heads and tiger lilies which he had somehow salvaged after Stiles knocked him out of the third story of the house as well as a corked bottle of aged Martinique rum. On either side of the iron pot were the silver candleholders in shape of Marinette of The Dry Hands, both of them already holding one each of the dark red candles that had been in the witch's desk drawer with the silver knife.

Then there was an array of long yellow bones laid out on the table end to end, each of them painted with black calligraphy ink in a tiny spidery scrawl. Stiles didn't recognize the language but thought that he might have seen it before in the shifting pages of the grimoire in the witch's room. At the houngan's right hand was a perfect human skull, which Stiles regarded with a morbid fascination. The skull was covered in the same tiny script. It was almost beautiful, the writing so florid and exact. Next to the skull was a statue, not made of silver but perhaps onyx or mica. It was dark and lustrous and in the shape of a man, tall and lean and a little over a foot fall. Its feet were planted firmly together and its arms held close at its sides. Besides that there were also a girls' hairbrush with a few dark strands snared on the bristles, a dirty baseball with fraying threads, and a beaded jade bracelet strung through with a tiny red silk cord. Stiles could tell from the way Derek looked at these last three objects in painful longing that they were things that his mother and sisters had left behind.

“Ah need you to be sure about this,” Dempsey said to Derek as he picked up the gleaming silver knife.

“Is that for what I think it's for?” Derek asked. Stiles' breath caught. He was standing beside Derek just behind Dempsey at the table.

“Ah won't need any small amount of blood, Ah can tell you that much,” Dempsey said. “It's why Ah need you to be sure.”

Stiles almost made a move to protest but Derek stepped forward before he could. He pulled his sleeve up over his elbow and offered his forearm, placing it right over the bubbling pot.

“No, not quite yet,” Dempsey said, brushing aside his arm gently. “Me, first. Ah've got to call mah Mama first. Ah've been meaning to have words with her for a good long time.”

Derek nodded in understanding and stepped back, taking Stiles' hand without a word.

Dempsey hovered over the pot and breathed deeply of the heady steam rising from its depths. Stiles thought he could smell something like honey and liquor from within it, along with a pervasive scent of herbs and spices. He knew what was coming next. He wanted to tear his eyes away in horror but he forced himself to watch.

Dempsey slashed a huge long wound in his own wrist with the knife in one savage movement. He did it without so much as wincing, so accustomed was he to letting blood for dark rituals like this. The smell of it mingled hot with the honey and spices as he held his wrist over the iron pot and let the blood flow in a syrupy cascade into the brew. Stiles felt his stomach churn but he held his gaze stubbornly. The wound closed in seconds and the witch picked up the statue beside the skull, holding it aloft as the contents of the pot seethed. He left bloody fingerprints on the statue as he lifted it high over his head toward the full Barley Moon, the wind rising with his power. Scott howled again from the basement.

“Ah call for Papa Legba, mighty be thy words and thy name. Ah am Dempsey Bonaventure, and Ah won't be denied.”

The wind whistled just short of a howl. Stiles clung to Derek who threw his arm around him immediately. Dempsey produced a handheld Zippo lighter and lit one of the dark red candles, then used the flame from the first to light the other. Even in the wind the flames stayed lit, dancing in the night.

“Ah call for Marinette Bra-Chéch, mighty be thy blessings and thy name. Ah am Dempsey Bonaventure, son of thy daughters who hath let blood in thy name. Ah make remittance in thy name with these red candles, rendered of mah own mother's tallow.” Stiles thought he might finally be sick at that. The candles had been made of human fat. He knew they had smelled funny when he lit the one in the witch's room. “Hear me, Dark Lady. Lady of The Bones. Ah make remittance in blood and blood again,” And with that he slashed his wrist again and fed the frothing pot, “That you might remember mah favor and remember mah vows in your name. Ah am Dempsey Bonaventure, and Ah won't be denied.

“Ah call for Evangeline Bonaventure, blood of mah blood. Ah call for the mambo who once wore these bones, enviable be thy sleep and thy communion. Ah call for the favored of the Loa, blood of mah blood.” Then he slammed the statue down hard on the table, causing a little spray from the lip of the iron pot, and turned on the spot in a bizarre little dance. He stamped his feet and swung his hips sensuously, making claws of his hands as he undulated his arms like snakes before the ritual table. In the same motion he picked up the bottle of rum and opened it with his teeth, spitting the cork out and swigging from the rim of the bottle as he picked up one of the dark red candles with his free hand. He sprayed the rum through his teeth directly into the little flame and it roared into a firestorm. Then he laid it down and repeated the motion with the other candle before he poured the rest of the bottle into the iron pot. The brew began to simmer at an immense boil.

Stiles hadn't realized that Dempsey had shifted into his wolf skin till he turned in his mad dance once more and revealed the shaggy pelt that had climbed over his face. His eyes glowed a vicious, searing blue under the Barley Moon, and as he bent back double and howled the wind howled right back. Scott answered them both in kind from the basement room, singing a dirge.

“Ah am Dempsey Bonaventure, and Ah won't be denied!” the witch said again, throwing up his hands where glinted ten wicked claws. “Show me Evangeline, show me mah mother! Pull her fast across the pall lest any dark creature follow. Show me Evangeline, show me mah mother!”

She appeared as a silver wraith, unfolding herself from the bubbling pot with a slow, languid grace. A woman in a simple corseted dress with strong Spanish and African features that perfectly mirrored those of the tall lean young man dancing before the ritual table. She looked to be only in her early thirties, wearing a string of small pearls at her throat and stacks and stacks of bangles on each wrist. Stiles could actually hear the bangles chiming together. Her earrings were wide round hoops framing her powerfully angular face, and she shared her son's knowing feline expression. Her long hair was caught up in a patterned scarf, her eyes quick and kind as she straightened her skirts with her hands as if she had just stood up out of a rocking chair. She stood before the table on the other side from Dempsey, or rather she seemed to float just there. She was there and she wasn't at the same time. Her feet weren't really touching the earth.

“Hey, Mama,” said Dempsey casually in his deep lupine voice. Stiles was taken aback when the specter answered.

“Aren't you a sight for sore eyes, Dempsey Bonaventure? Been awhile since you've called your poor old Mama, hasn't it? And is that Derek Hale Ah see there? Come forward so Ah can see you, young man.”

Derek obliged graciously, stepping toward the table and bowing his head just a little. “Miss Evangeline. Good to see you again, ma'am.”

“I thought you said they wouldn't be able to speak,” Stiles said before he could catch himself.

“She ain't coming from where they'll be coming from,” Dempsey explained. “She's coming from Guinee. She didn't go to the same place that normal folks go when they die.”

“Sure wish Ah had,” said the spectral woman with a deep belly laugh. “Then this here boy with all his rotten magick wouldn't be able to ring me up every time he needed a piece of advice from a woman who just wants some rest.” She said it with a teasing tone. “And who would you be, young man, holding onto the young Mr. Hale's hand like that? Mah goodness, the company you keep, son of mine. Do you see what this boy is? Ah mean, mah God. When was the last time a warlock like you ever existed, young man?”

Stiles was dumbfounded till Derek said, “Introduce yourself.”

“I'm – uh – I'm Stiles, ma'am. Stiles Stillinski.”

“Hmm, not your real name, Ah gather,” said Evangeline with a kind smile. “What a specimen you are. Ah believe the last elemancer Ah've ever heard of passed on through the pall over a millennium ago, Stiles Stillinski. Have these boys impressed upon you what a rarity you are?”

It was Derek who spoke up at that. “He's a rarity with or without the spark, Miss Evangeline.”

“Ah can see that, Mr. Hale,” said Evangeline. “And you, poor Derek. Mah poor lonely boy. How Ah wish Ah could have changed any of it for you. Ah've watched you off and on from the place between places. How Ah wish Ah could have changed any of it for either you or mah poor son.”

“Mama, did you know?” asked Dempsey, laying down the silver knife. “You talk like you knew they were gone. Why didn't you tell me? Why didn't you lead me home sooner?”

“Sweet boy, it wasn't mine to tell,” said the spectral woman, smoothing her hand through her hair. “It isn't mine to interfere in a world no longer for me unless the Loa say it's mine to do. And they did no such thing when Talia Hale and her clan met their end. Ah'm sorry, sweetheart. Both of you, mah sweet boys. Ah'm sorry for what you've lost and for what you'll keep on losing.”

Derek tensed and gripped Stiles tightly to him at that. “We're not losing anything else, Evangeline. We're moving forward after tonight. We're not going to lose anybody else.”

But the spectral woman only looked at him sadly, like a mother unable to console her weeping infant. “You'd speak to them tonight then, wouldn't you boys? That's why Ah'm here?”

“If it isn't too much trouble, Mama,” said Dempsey. “If you can help me find them. Ah can't presume to know what the Loa wanted for me in keeping me away after they died. But Ah'd like to make peace with it. Ah'd like to give Derek a chance to make peace.”

Evangeline sighed and clapped her hands together. “Then we'd best get to work, shouldn't we? Not much time left to the witching hour.”

Stiles leaned up to kiss Derek quickly before he stepped forward to do his part. This was going to hurt most to watch but he forced himself to keep his eyes trained on the ritual, to drink in every part of it.

Derek offered his arm over the bubbling iron pot again and Dempsey picked up the silver knife, spinning it fast in a flashing arch that sliced open the veins cleanly and allowed the blood to gush into the scented mixture with his own. Stiles put a comforting hand on Derek's side when he saw him wince just slightly at the bite of the blade. “Are you OK?”

“I can take it,” Derek said. “I can take anything as long as you're next to me.”

Stiles inched forward as Dempsey wrung Derek's arm to force more blood into the pot. Stiles' head was spinning at the sight of all that blood but he kept a firm vigil beside the dark man, never breaking contact with him for a second.

“What were your grandparents' names, Derek?” asked Evangeline.

“My grandfather on my mother's side was Julius,” said Derek, pale with anticipation. “His wife was Marada.”

“Julius and Marada then,” said Evangeline. Then she turned her silvery palms up toward the full moon, bangles jingling musically. The dark red candles rendered from her own fat were still burning. They burned for far longer than when Stiles had lit one. Her voice, which had been kittenish and sweet before, boomed over the preserve. “By this blood, Ah bind the dead. Ah bind them to me and to mine, and only at this hour. Hear me, ye beyond the pall, and shake! The witching hour is upon ye beneath the Barley Moon, so by mah power Ah bind thee. By mah son's power and mah son's blood Ah bind thee. Hear me and shake!” There was the wind again. Had it ever waned?

Dempsey picked up first the jade bracelet and dropped it into the pot. Derek moaned slightly at the loss but he made no move to retrieve it.

“Ah call Talia Hale, begat of Julius and Marada!” cried Evangeline. Then Dempsey took the hairbrush with its dark strands and dropped that in with a viscous splash. “Ah call Laura Hale, begat of Andreas and Talia!”

Andreas. That must have been Derek's father.

Lastly, Dempsey picked up the tattered baseball and it too joined the boiling brew. Evangeline threw back her head, her hair flying beneath the scarf. “Ah call Cora Hale, begat of Andreas and Talia! Ah am Evangeline Bonaventure, begat of Léonore, begat of Valérie, begat of Célestine! Ah will not be denied!”

Stiles was beguiled at the sheer fearlessness these two powerful beings showed in saying that again and again to whatever higher power was listening; I will not be denied. He wondered fitfully what that kind of power must feel like, to be able to make demands of gods or things that thought themselves to be gods.

Dempsey slashed Derek's wrist again and then his own, and they let the twin streams cross each other into the iron pot as he howled and joined his mother in her chant. “Ah am Dempsey Bonaventure, begat of Evangeline, begat of Léonore, begat of Valérie, begat of Célestine! Ah will not be denied! By mah command, open the veil! Show me Talia! Show me Laura! Show me Cora! Open the veil! Ah will not be denied!”

It felt as if they were standing in the eye of a hurricane, or at least it was how Stiles had read it described in books. All around them suddenly a ring of thunderstorms had collected with the howling wind, though not a drop of rain touched them at the center where they stood before the ritual table. But the lightning was so great in the distance that it was striking down trees and leaving the earth sizzled and raw. Stiles could smell the scorched soil from miles away. And the bubbling iron pot was directly at the center of the storm.

Three lithe figures unfolded themselves from within the pot just as Evangeline had. They were silvery just as she was. First was a tall woman with hair spilling over her shoulders in bare feet wearing a satiny shift with a delicate floral print, her age apparent in the soft lines of her face and the meager wrinkles around her eyes. Then came a girl of the same height with hair to her waist clad in a tight skirt to her knees and a simple buttoned blouse. Stiles felt Derek's grip on his hand tighten, heard the catch of his breath. Derek didn't dare to say a thing until the final spirit hauled herself out of the boiling pot, a significantly shorter girl in plain jeans and a long-sleeved shirt not unlike what Derek usually wore.

Evangeline took a step back and let the three women approach the table, hand in hand. They seemed mildly confused at first, then they saw Dempsey first, then Derek, and their faces lit up in identical smiles.

Talia Hale rushed forward first, climbing over the table though Stiles had a feeling she could have whisked right through it if she desired. But maybe she didn't know that. Either way she had thrown her arms around her son before he could react properly to the sight of her, and then Stiles relinquished Derek's hand happily as he watched the dark man embrace her and break down into the barest parts of himself at his mother's touch.

“Mom... Oh, God, Mom...” Derek sobbed, inhaling into her neck as if he could have gleaned some lingering scent of her in this form. The spirit seemed to be weeping too, though to watch her do so soundlessly was a little unsettling. “Thank you, Demps. Evangeline, thank you.

“Mom, I miss you so much,” he said, looking over her shoulder at his sisters, who were watching with tearful grins. “I miss you all so much, I don't even have words for it.” He extended his hands over his mother's back and his sisters came forward to take them. His mother broke away from him gently, putting her palm on his cheek just as he'd done to Stiles innumerable times since the first time as if to say, “Just a moment.” Then she floated with silent steps over to where Dempsey was standing, looking guilty, as Laura and Cora threw themselves onto Derek.

“Ah... Ah know what Ah've done, Talia,” the witch said plainly to Talia Hale. “What Ah promised you Ah'd never do. Ah don't expect you to forgive me.”

Talia touched his face too, and he sniffled a bit and crooked a smile. “But of course you are, aren't you? Ah never deserved you, Talia.” But she shook her head. Then she turned to Stiles, whose face colored.

“Mom, this is Stiles,” Derek said, taking his hand again. “I didn't think I'd ever get a chance to introduce you.”

But she knew who he was. Stiles could see she already knew, and in her warm gaze alone he could hear a river of exclamations and gratitude – he knew he wasn't imagining it somehow; “Thank you for being there for him. Thank you for loving him. Thank you for making my son happy. Thank you for holding his broken heart together.”

What happened next was almost too fast to process. Stiles wasn't so engaged with the specter of Derek's mother that he couldn't see Cora Hale, shorter by Derek by nearly a foot, inching back toward the table with her hand behind her back. She had been ecstatic at first, but just as soon as Derek turned his back on her the smile had dropped from her lips and she had begun to move steadily toward where Dempsey had placed the silver knife on the ritual table.

Evangeline saw it first after Stiles, and when she motioned to Dempsey he saw it too. Cora had both hands on the table now as Laura and Talia fawned over Derek, toying with his hair and marveling at the size of him. Cora was reaching for the knife, not taking her eyes off Derek for a second. Stiles tried to say something but he was afraid Derek couldn't hear him through his breathless joy. “Derek... Derek, something's not right.”

Dempsey mirrored his warning, putting a hand on Derek's shoulder and trying to draw him away from the table. “Derek. Get away. That's not Cora. Derek, move! That's not Cora!”

But it was too late. The spirit screamed in a high wail as it wound a hand around the knife, the thick iron screws burning its palms and letting off smoke. But it was able to lift the knife for long enough to drive it deep into Derek's back between his shoulder blades. Then it hastily let go of the blade and its hand melted away where the iron had touched it.

Talia screamed without sound and Laura whirled to face the thing that was wearing Cora's face. Stiles cried Derek's name and lunged forward to catch him as he slumped to the ground. He had a hand around the handle of the knife and was already pulling it out of Derek's back as the dark man fought for breath, wheezing around the blade. He coughed up what looked like a full pint of blood and Stiles tore off Derek's shirt and tied it tight against the wound, begging him to heal. The ring of thunderstorms bellowed as Laura caught the impostor fast by its wrist where there was no longer a hand and Evangeline took it by the other arm. The creature opened its mouth to scream again and all present saw that its mouth was lined with razor-sharp, snapping steel teeth.

“What Hellspawn are you!?” Dempsey demanded, picking up the knife from where Stiles had dropped it in the dirt and brandishing it at the impostor who thrashed and kicked in the grip of the two spirits. “Lying thing, thief of souls! Take off mah sister's face and show me what you are!”

“Son, we can't hold it!” cried Evangeline. “Be done with this thing! We can't hold it!”

Stiles kissed Derek on both cheeks and found himself crying. Derek wouldn't stop regurgitating blood. “Dempsey, do something! He's not healing! Derek, hold on. Don't you dare bleed out on me now. Just hold on!” Scott howled from the basement again, as if he could sense everything. Well, he could certainly hear it, couldn't he?

“Damn it!” swore the witch. “Get thee gone then, you evil thing!” He kicked over the table and the iron pot spilled its boiling contents into the earth. The bones scattered, the skull clattering away. The dark red candles snuffed out and fell out of the candleholders. “Dare to steal mah sister's face, will you? Ah'll rip the pall right open and send you to Hell someday for this, you lying thing. You ugly shaitan. Talia, Ah need your help!” But Talia was loathe to leave Derek's side. “Talia, he's in good hands! Ah'll heal him mahself! Damn it, Ah need you! Help them drag this thing back over the veil!”

“Mom...” Derek said through a mouthful of blood.

“Derek, don't talk,” Stiles said, pressing on his wound as hard as he could. But Derek shook his head.

“Mom, go,” he insisted. Talia looked at him like he had asked her to murder him. “Mom, go help Laura. You have to help Laura. I love you, Mom. I love you both. Go help Laura!”

Talia kissed him and held him fast, then rose. She surged toward the struggling demon and put her silvery fist through the impostor's chest with no ceremony. The creature that wasn't Cora Hale shrieked and even Stiles had to cover his ears at the sound. Scott went into hysterics below them, the spirits flickering in and out of view as Dempsey moved toward them and pressed the handle of the knife into the creature's forehead.

“Cursed thing, liar among liars,” he chanted over the storm and the impostor's screech. The iron screws burned out the creature's eyes and the countenance of a pretty young girl faded to be replaced by vapid emptiness above that ugly snapping jaw. “Get thee gone! Get thee behind the veil. This realm was never for you! This face was never for you! The witching hour is past, your power is waned. Shunned thing, get thee gone! GET THEE GONE!”

The four spirits flickered once more then faded entirely into vapor and nothingness just as the double cellar doors burst open and a furious young wolf-man rocketed out into the night. Stiles called after Scott desperately but he was already gone.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was doing so good at churning out a chapter a week till this one! Hopefully the next one won't be that much of a wait. Had a lot of fun with this one as I've sort of been quietly building toward the séance for awhile now. Next time on The Thorny Way They Walked; what the mother-fuck is Scott up to?


	8. All That's Left

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Even a man who is pure of heart -  
> And says his prayers by night -  
> May become a wolf  
> When the wolfsbane blooms,  
> And the autumn moon is bright."  
> -Jenny Williams, The Wolf Man (1941)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been so long and I only have eleven measly pages to offer this time! T_T My apologies, readers, I've had a lot of stuff going on personally but I'm going to be trying to update more frequently henceforth. This story is chugging along at such a slow pace that I get a little overwhelmed sometimes and have to put it down to work on original content, but I've made a promise to myself not to shelf it! Thanks for sticking around, you beautiful people.

“SCOTT! Goddammit, Scott!”

The antiquated blue jeep puttered through the woods as fast as Stiles could push it while skirting trees and rumbling over small creeks, smashing the vegetation in its path to mulch.

The young wolf-man who had slipped his bonds in the basement could have cleared the preserve by now. Derek could feel the pull of the full pearlescent moon overhead in his weakened state, his own wolf skin knotted tight over his bones by no intent of his own. Scott must have been crazed beyond thought or instinct, not only by the Barley Moon but the massive eldritch energy that had risen out of the Earth during the ritual. Derek had felt it like snaking fingers of braided ice and fire on every inch of his skin during the raising, that outpouring of savage power gushing up from the planet's womb to funnel through Dempsey's body as he conjured beside his mother.

The wound on Derek's back was healing far too slowly as the witch wove a sigil of panacea with his spidering fingers over the incision. The knife had slipped precisely between two ribs and lacerated one of his lungs, missing his living heart by maybe two inches. It was a cursed wound, dealt by a cursed blade in the hands of something that might well have been a demon. Using the knife to let blood for the raising had been one thing. Those wounds had healed well enough. But the thing with teeth had imbued the flawless silver of the blade with some evil intent and now the wound was festering. The flesh would have been blackened and rotting had Dempsey not immediately begun treating it with whispered incantations and crushed herbs. It had healed on the inside, his lung was whole and functional, but it would not close. Dempsey said that he was going to have to stitch it up by hand once they found Scott.

The thing was, finding Scott was proving to be more of a nuisance than any of them could have bargained for. His scent was everywhere, and muddied by the thunderstorms. Dempsey couldn't reach out with his mind to track the kid while minding Derek's wound at the same time in the backseat of the jeep. He had exhausted his power with the raising, pushed himself too far not only in pulling four spirits over from the other side, but forcing one back through the veil kicking and screaming. It was taking all he had just to keep the rot out of Derek's wounds. Derek could hear Dempsey's breath wavering on his shoulder, his words catching in the chant as he steadied himself with his other hand on the headrest while the jeep skittered and jumped on mud and stones.

Whatever enmity Derek had felt toward his adopted brother before tonight was forgotten for the moment. He couldn't think on hating him anymore. He'd gotten to hold his mother and sister again. And his mother had smelled of jasmine in her hair just like she had when living, and Laura had been just as fierce and protective as she had been in life. She had assaulted the demon without a thought, his big sister. The warrior princess.

Derek tried not to think too much on Cora. Now wasn't the time to think on Cora, there was too much else to consider. Too much madness descending all around them, preparing to swallow them all alive. The Argents, the outsiders that were going to come stalking into Beacon Hills sooner than later to begin a blood-soaked campaign to claim his mother's land; there was too much at stake to worry now about Cora. Cora, who had taken care of herself all this time. Cora, who was all alone out there. Who had been alone for six years.

All three of them had made it free of the fire. Derek, Laura, and Cora. All three of their mothers' children, and they had all gone separate ways, thinking the others long dead. The thing with teeth proved it. If Cora was dead then she would have come. There was no other explanation. Dempsey had never failed before in a raising.

If she was dead then she would have come.

His baby sister was alive.

Derek almost didn't want to believe it lest his hopes be dashed again by some dark twist, but he had looked up into Dempsey's eyes after the spirits vanished and he had known. There had been tears rolling down the witch's cheeks, a triumphant grin smeared across his angular features despite all that had just occurred. Despite the fact the séance had drained him to the point of collapse. He'd been smiling effortlessly. He didn't even have to say it. She was alive. Cora was alive. Baby girl with her wine-red hair, she was alive.

“Scott! I know you can hear me, you asshole! Scott!” Stiles called again out his open window, wheeling along the hill that rose onto the retaining wall of the narrow road into town. “SCOTT MCCALL! Don't make me call your mother! Oh, for fuck's sake!”

Derek reached up over the center console and touched his hand gently, mindful of his claws, and Stiles wrung their hands together in a panic.

“Can you smell him? Anything at all?”

“Everywhere,” Derek answered as he had before. “I'm sorry. We'll find him, Stiles. Keep going.” He tried to imbue as much comfort and blind hope as he could in those few words. He was a wellspring of hope and little else right now. If they could find Scott then they could find Cora, too.

“This is insane,” Stiles said. “What if he goes into town? What if he kills someone?” Derek could tell he was thinking about the Sheriff's station, just outside of town. The nearest populated place from the edge of the preserve. He was thinking about his father sitting alone in that little office drinking coffee, his father who would probably be the first to draw his weapon to check on the sound of a howl or a snarl outside. There was a flutter of something hot beneath Stiles' palm, like the crackle of electricity. Derek wondered if Stiles himself could feel it, magick arcing under his skin. Arcane lightning dancing in his veins, a fire lit by a demon.

Derek didn't believe in fate, except that sometimes he did. He believed in it when Dempsey traced the lines of his palm and told him what his future held, because Dempsey was very rarely wrong. He believed in it when Dempsey flipped onto a table the elaborate, hand-painted tarot cards he kept wrapped in a silk scarf in his bag with Evangeline's bones.

What stroke of fate then had brought Derek into contact with a member of a race of extinct sorcerers, the elemancers of old myth who had parted oceans with the power in their hands? Had Dempsey seen this when he read his palm on the side of the road that night? What intention did the world beneath this world have in bringing him and Stiles together at this juncture, the birth of his power? Could Dempsey really train him into a warlock proper when he had gone this long with his spark dead in his breast? What for, even? This wasn't his war to fight, sorcerer or not. And yes, there wouldn't even be a war to fight with the Argent clan or the outsiders and whatever numbers their packs posed if there was a fully-fledged elemancer to stand in their way. Forget Dempsey's hocus-pocus, forget the teachings of the Sisters of The White Phoenix. If Dempsey wanted to burn an adversary then he would have to ask the Loa for the power to do so. But if Stiles were trained well enough? He could crack the Earth open beneath their enemies and send them tumbling into the fire beneath before closing the ground up over them.

Strange to think it, that kind of power in these hands. These soft, gentle hands, that were so small in Derek's hooked talons. But there was a fire inside them, he could feel it. There was a lightning storm in his blood, his skin now smelling of scorched earth and heady leaves. It was miraculous, even Stiles' natural scent had been replaced by something deeper and mystical. Like he had grown roots into the telluric currents and the magick was seeping out of his pores.

“Who wants to bet dollars to doughnuts that we find him if we find the Alpha?” Dempsey said suddenly, and Derek could have kicked himself.

“Of course,” he uttered. “Damn it, I never would have thought of it. Idiot.”

“A moment ago you were sucking air through a hole in your sternum,” Dempsey said. “Ain't nobody gonna blame you for not thinking of it.”

“What are you two talking about?” asked Stiles.

“He made him,” explained Dempsey. “That black thing with his black heart, lurking somewhere out there still after Ah put the scare of God into him. Scott's his Beta, he'll be tethered to him. Remember what Derek told you about the damn evil thing wanting to build an army? Well, he's certainly got the right idea. If he wants what's ours then he'll need to consolidate power against the invaders, not to mention those fool mortals with their guns and poisons.” Derek shot him a menacing look, his heart sinking into his stomach, and Dempsey smiled almost wickedly. “How long did you think you could hide it from me, Sugah? Ah know they're here, Ah know they're plotting and scheming and oiling their guns. And Ah'll tell you what, they drew first blood, so to Hell with them.”

“Demps, it's not that simple. It wasn't all of them, they didn't act together.”

“Then neither will we,” Dempsey said simply. “You can sit on your laurels, Derek Hale. No, that's unfair. You look for Cora. You go look for our baby sister, Ah know you want to. Ah wouldn't trust anyone else to. You go on and bring Cora home, and when ya'll come back Ah'll have taken back this land so we can start our own pack all over again. Ah'll take it back from the Alpha, and from the Argents, and from whoever the hell dares to step pad or claw in our borders to try and take what once belonged to Talia. Deucalion and his little horde, Ennis and his brood, even Kali and her pissant attack dogs. All of them. Let them come. Ah'll yank open the pall again and whatever that thing was that wounded you like this, whatever it was that shook loose an ember in our Stiles here, it'll seem a guppy compared to the leviathans Ah'll unleash on them. Ah'll set all of Guinea on them, all the spirits and all the Loa. It'll be them against Hell Itself. No one comes onto our land and takes what belonged to our mother. No one comes here to kill us in fire. Never again.”

“For Christ's sake!” Stiles shouted. “You and your fucking supervillain monologues! There is a time and place, you goddamn Looney Tune, we don't have time for this! Derek, what the hell was he trying to say before he went all, 'Wrath of Khan'? Scott's tethered to the Alpha?”

“He'll want Scott to hunt with him tonight,” Derek said. “He'll come out of hiding for it, I'm sure of it. He's going to have a certain amount of thrall over Scott in the wolf skin because he's the Alpha that bit him.”

“That doesn't make sense,” Stiles said. “Back at the house earlier this week, Scott stood up to him. Roared right in his face.”

“He won't be able to resist him during the fever,” Derek explained. “Not during the full moon. But I haven't heard the Alpha call, not a single howl.”

“But he will,” Dempsey said ominously. “Dollars to doughnuts, he will. Ah felt the hatred on that thing, all the darkness in his soul whether or not Ah could look inside his head. God knows even Ah don't want to know what the inside of that head looks like. Takes either the most disciplined mind or a right mad beast to lock me out like that. He'll call for Scott. He'll want to kill tonight. We'll know some shadow of his intent tonight when first he kills.”

“There's no 'when',” Derek said resolutely. “We're going to find him and stop him. You and me, we'll take him down ourselves.”

“Oh, yes, you're going to do just fine with a wound like this. You're leaking demon ichor, you know that right?” Derek hadn't known that. He was horrified. So that was why the laceration was so damn cold, why the flesh around it simultaneously burned. It was infected, touched by the world beneath this world. “Yeah, wrap your head around that one, Derek Hale. This wound is black as sin. You're in no shape to be tussling with that monster. Neither am Ah, for that matter. You know as well as Ah do that Ah'm more use with a spell than mah own claws, and Ah can barely keep this wound from spreading as it is. If Ah break focus for more than ten minute's it's going to kill you. Think on that, Derek Hale, you and your damn hot head.”

Stiles was silent for a moment, only squeezing Derek's hand all that much harder. Then he spoke up. “We have to find Scott. That's all we can do for now. We find Scott, we knock him out and throw him in the trunk and haul ass.”

“Stiles, people are going to die.”

“You're going to die,” Stiles said. “You heard Dempsey. We need you well again. We don't have a chance without you. And this is my fault. You're not going to die from that wound because of me.”

“Stiles, what the hell are you talking about?”

“You know damn well what I'm talking about,” Stiles insisted. “That thing didn't want you, Derek. You were just in the way.”

Dempsey faltered, as if he hadn't put that together yet despite all his vicious cunning. Derek had already thought of it himself, but he didn't think Stiles would have been so quick to put his finger on it. Not in midst of all the panic. He was constantly underestimating this boy.

“Mah God, of course,” Dempsey breathed. “As if the Argents and Deucalion weren't bad enough.”

“Who the hell is Deu – ”

“Later, later,” said the witch, waving a hand dismissively at Stiles. “This thing with teeth is as deadly as any enemy we could be faced with, if not the deadliest. It's got its sights on you and all that hidden power within you, Stiles. Mah God, who the hell did we kill in a past life? We're being assaulted from all sides. The Alpha, the mortals, the outsiders, and the demon. All closing in at once. And if the demon gets what it wants first then everyone dies, friend and foe alike. Mortal or wolf. And how many of us are there to stand against all this? Two werewolves, a voodoo witch, and an elemancer with no training. Might as well be mortal still. Well, Ah guess we're all mortal in one way or another. Derek. Derek, we need numbers.”

Derek scowled in disgust. “No. Hell no. Never, Demps.”

“What are you saying?” Stiles interjected. “You want to make more werewolves?”

“That's exactly what he's saying,” Derek said furiously. “Except none of us are an Alpha. We're going to end up just torturing and killing people. We're not going to start piling up our own bodies, Demps.”

“Ah can make sure it takes!” Dempsey said to Derek's utter alarm. “Ah can put a fix on them once you've bitten them. And it's Talia's line you'll be passing to them. That's strong mojo if Ah've ever known any. Ah can make sure none die. Ah can make sure the bite doesn't kill them.”

Derek was beyond himself. His mouth had dried, his eyes watering instead. “You can what? Are... Are you insane? Jesus, I feel like I've asked you that more in the last few days than I've ever spoken the words. This... This is why you went away, isn't it? My God, this is why. Where the hell could you have learned to do something like that? Nobody in centuries has ever...”

“Ah haven't been around for most of those long centuries,” Dempsey said gravely. “You know better than anyone that all men and beasts underestimate me at their peril, Derek Hale. Ah can make it work. Ah've done it.”

“Demps, are you telling me you've made more of us while you were gone? That you – what? – experimented on people? Because of me? Because of Paige?” It hurt just a bit still to say her name. It twinged like the bite of some loathsome insect.

“Who the hell is Pai – ”

“Because Ah saw it in the stars and in your palm,” Dempsey said, cutting Stiles off again. “Not the other night but years ago. Because Ah saw fire, and war, and blood, and loss in your future and in mine, though Ah didn't know what any of it meant. And because Ah was young and impetuous and because Ah thought Ah could fix it if only Ah were powerful enough. And because it hurt you so much when she died that Ah never wanted you to feel that broken again. Now look at what Ah've done, Ah left you all alone for the worst that was yet to come and you've broken ten times more since. And none of it did any good at all. But now it can. Ah can't go back and undo any of what's already past but Ah sure as Hell can give us a fighting chance now. Ah never made any more of us, not through mah own bite. But Ah met many more of our kind out there in the big wide world. Many who'd given the bite to friends and loved ones who were wasting away and dying like she died. Just like Paige.

“Ah tore a page out of the book before Ah left and kept it with me, a leaf from the grimoire. A commentary on transfiguration and warping the cells of the human body to accommodate transformation from the mundane to the mystic. After Ah climbed down off of Aag Parvat Ah went from place to place, offering to try and help those who were suffering where Ah could.”

“How many?” Derek demanded. “How many made it through and how many died?”

“Seven,” Dempsey answered solemnly. “Not a single one died. Not one. Do you understand what that means?”

Derek gaped. He shook his head in disbelief. “And how many people know that you can do this? What if it becomes common knowledge? Christ, Demps, who's going to be coming for you for this knowledge? I thought we were in danger before.”

“Be less danger if we have a right proper pack of our own,” Dempsey said simply. “And an Alpha of our own. Think how easy it'll be. You kill that black thing and rip out his black heart and you'll be the Alpha, and we'll have our own pack again to stand against the Argents and Deucalion and anyone else who dares to step an invading foot in our town again. It was Laura's spark, Derek, it belongs with you and no one else. We take it back, we protect this land like our family did before us. We find our sister, we find some purpose in this hideous life again. No more wandering, no more loneliness. Ah can help make it happen. Ah can make the bite take. We can rebuild the house from the ground up and run these woods by night like the guardians our kind are meant to be. As long as the nemeton still has roots in this town then this place will never be safe. There will always be invaders to repel. You think about that. We don't have to do it, but think hard on it. We're all that stands in the way of the darkness yet to come. We're all that's left, Derek.”

 

***

 

RUN. Scent. Hide. Stalk. Bleed. Eat.

These were the peak of sentient thought that could be afforded Scott McCall in his transformed state as he tore his way through the trees. His pads were well used in thundering across the rough terrain, the thick hair on his arms repelling the sting of brambles that reached to scratch at his hidden skin.

The third skin that hung loosely from his hackles was slashed and ruined, his shirt in tatters and flying about his broad powerful shoulders like wings in flight. His maw dripped viscous spittle that watered his palate for the promise of hot flesh. One any other night when he had run as a wolf-man he had been Scott McCall still; curious, conscious just beneath the surface, looking out his own eyes as if through a window in a thunderstorm.

Tonight, he had burst through the glass and was living a brand new existence, baptized in the rain. Tonight, his being had been rolled and pulled apart and soldered back together into a perfect animal, lantern eyes glowing bright and aware of everything but himself. There was a stream, cool and vitalizing; there was the moon, magnetizing, ever-present. He didn't know the words anymore but he knew these things. It was just like the first time all over again, though he couldn't think to remember a first time. This was all he was, all he had ever been. All he had ever been was run, scent, hide, stalk, bleed, eat.

The buck never saw him coming. Its scent in early rut was thick on the wind, knifing through the earthen fragrance of after-rain. Musk, piss, aggression, sex. The animal was forsaking any pride in its elegant stature, near blind in its instinctual ardor. The tines of it made an eerie rhythm as it scraped the velvet raw on the trunk of a molting willow, its pungent urine muddying the roots where its hooves dug trenches in aching frustration at lack of rival for jousting or doe for mounting. Its coat was smooth and rich with the stink of testosterone, fight-filthy. And what a fight it could make.

The young wolf-man watched the buck from a distance for some time, circling it from leaf-cover on perfectly silent feet. He watched the arch of its long powerful neck as it raked the papery bark. The animal keened and lowed in a sensational voice that trilled and echoed. The werewolf observed with dripping chops the taut thick muscle that enshrined the buck's wide heaving ribcage, its swaying belly round and full. How easy it would be to tear those thundering legs out from beneath it, how delicately that powerful neck would shudder as his teeth lanced the dainty throat. He wondered if the blood would fill his mouth. He had never killed another living thing before but somehow he knew without a doubt that the blood would fill his mouth to overflowing. He was sure at any moment that the buck would note his scent or even hear the rustling of foliage as he rimmed the clearing where the unfortunate willow stood, but the animal was so violent and sex-dumb that it was either oblivious or it simply didn't care. What natural beast could challenge a buck in rut of this size and strength alone? If the animal smelled a wolf it smelled only one. No single predator could meet the stag and prevail. Enter the werewolf on padded feet.

The first blow was dealt not with crushing teeth but with a sweep of the young wolf-man's long hulking arm. The rush was explosive. He burst from the wilting undergrowth with a roar and the buck froze rather than start. Too late did it attempt to lower its deadly rack at the oncoming assault. The animal's carnal trumpeting became a shriek of rage and despair as its front legs were swept akimbo by a lightning-quick paw, the hooked dewclaw at the werewolf's wrist catching quick on felted skin to send the animal tumbling. There was no defending from what came next, no matter how the lonely stag threw its molting antlers or thrashed its dagger-sharp hooves.

The werewolf's jaws met the soft tissue under the prey creature's chin and held it fast there, hulking masseter muscles driving its crushing fangs into the windpipe so that the poor creature couldn't make another sound but for its petulant death throes. The predator snarled around his captive's entire head, one hand clutching the deadly rack so that the tines sank helplessly into the urine-puddled earth.

Finally the werewolf's vicious eye teeth met the huge pulsing artery in the neck that he had been searching for, the fount of life that funneled blood from the heart to the brain. The pressure was enormous, and of course it had to be if so much live-giving fluid was to be channeled up that long neck, so when the wolf-man's fangs punctured that singular vital artery he felt the initial gush of it splatter on the roof of his mouth.

It was an exquisite bouquet, that first mouthful of blood. It was hotter than moonlight, but nowhere near as bright. Truthfully, it was rosy and dark to taste, and it bubbled forth in geysers so that the werewolf's short-lived hunt quickly became a glutting. He exhaled steam in the autumnal chill and the same vapors rose off the body of the stag, which struggled still in small kicks and spasms that grew shorter by the second. Scott found a rolling ecstasy in the taking of this lustful, truculent life. He felt it die beneath his teeth with a final shudder and exhaled through his flared wide nostrils in a thrill, letting the body slip from his jaws for a moment to raise his head to the spinning round moon and howl. Then the feast began in earnest.

He started with the swollen belly of the stag, ripping a seam in the skin beneath the ribs and pulling apart the whole of it with his gruesome talons. When the stag was properly eviscerated he gorged himself on the succulent organs, choosing the rich fatty liver to devour before any cut of meat. Then he prised open the ribcage with thumb and claw and tore loose the billowy lungs which were soft and wet on his tongue. He sucked them down one after the other, licking his chops to savor the juices that dribbled from the ripe, luscious flesh.

Next he ate the heart in three bites. This was a fascinating experience for the young wolf-man, for the heart was twice the size of his fist and filled his palm still beating when he tore it unceremoniously from between the shattered ribs. It spurted a sumptuous stew when he took the first bite, and he found he liked the thick fibrous heart almost as much as the lush dripping liver.

The hearty meat of the haunches was a pleasant afterthought to follow the beating heart, the entree to curb his real hunger after a delicious aperitif. The blood didn't flow as freely after he ate the heart but it was still plentiful and far richer than wine.

“Scott! Drop it, now! Oh, Jesus, man!”

Fool! Useless, unmindful mongrel, he'd been too occupied with the meal. There was a trespasser – no, three – advancing on him through the trees. Stink of wolf-scent on one, stink of man-scent on another – the one who had thrown his voice and challenged the wolf-man at his meal. The third was... The third had a stink of something, and it was something the young werewolf could vaguely remember. He thought of the biting steel chains around his arms, the feeling of that something rising up out of the earth all around him in his subterranean dungeon as the wind whipped upstairs.

Dead things. He had felt dead things rising. Come to think of it, he smelled a faint whiff of that vague something on the man-scented one, too.

“Stiles, get behind me, dammit,” said the wolf-scented one; Brother Wolf, wolf with a dark sick wound. Wolf that smelled like dying.

The wounded one was trying to take his kill. The wounded one was too lame to kill for himself, and the wounded one was not of his pack. It wasn't his kill to share, not his conquest, and so what if there was more than the young one could eat on his own? It was his, he had killed it all on his own with no pack to stalk and harry the stag to exhaustion before dealing the killing blow. He had done it alone, he was mighty alone. No Brother Wolf with dark wounds was going to take what was his.

“Aw, God, he's got bowel in his hair. Scott, man, how are you not throwing chunks right now?”

“Stiles, I said get behind me! He's going to go postal, look at him. Back away now. We all need to back away. He thinks we want the kill. I can't take him like this.”

“So what do we do!? Scott, buddy, you gotta stop this. That is just gross, man, you can't even help your mom stuff a turkey for Thanksgiving without getting queasy. There isn't gonna be enough Imodium in the world for you tomorrow, dude.”

“Ah'll try to put a fix on him,” said the third one who stank of dried blood and water flowers. “Derek, Ah won't be able to mind the wound for a moment, but you need to keep him from bolting or attacking.” Then his fingers began weaving in the breeze and he began to make a soft song of his husky voice. Scott felt that foreign power simmering beneath his feet again and forgot his kill momentarily, pulling his claws free of the carcass and spitting a thatch of veins to snarl in defiance.

“Shitting Hell. Hurry, Demps.” Pain in the Brother Wolf's voice, pain spiking massively in his musty scent. But he advanced just a little anyway, stepping in front of the man-scented one. Scott abandoned the snarl and growled low in his throat now, baring his teeth in a menacing grimace.

“Scott, we just want to help,” said the weak one, the one made of sticks and mud who smelled of grave panic. If there hadn't been another predator facing him then Scott would have honed in on that panic. Stalk, bleed, eat. The man-scented one would have gone down even easier than the stag. “Please let us help, buddy. And please stop looking at me like you think I'd be good with fries. Goddamn, now I'm hungry. How the hell am I hungry? Derek, you're taking me for curly fries after this.”

“Good to know you're such a cheap date.”

“Will be for awhile, seeing as I don't intend to be eating meat anytime soon. Or ever again. Maybe I'll go vegan. Shave the sides of my head and start wearing canvas shoes.”

Scott's perception was blurring suddenly. It was a slow decline but his limbs felt heavier. Like his rich meal had dulled both his body and what remained of his mind.

“Alternatively, you could do none of those awful things and we could go to the most expensive steak house in town for tenderloin and fries that weren't cooked frozen straight out of a plastic bag.”

Fear on their voices. Fear on Brother Wolf's voice beneath the pain that grew and grew by the second. Vague. Scott was growing weary. Breathing required more conscious effort. The water flower-scented trespasser continued to sing under his breath, swaying with the breeze.

“I should be completely grossed out by that heinous display of classism but I'm going to opt for the two-hundred-dollar filet mignon instead... Will they wrap it in bacon?”

“For what La Vache charges they'd better kill it tableside if we ask them to.”

“And there goes my desire to ever eat meat again.”

“Oh, mah God, have you two always been this galling? Do you have any idea how much concentration this requires?”

“I thought you were the Great and Powerful Oz? How long is this going to take?”

Scott took a shaky step forward and wobbled, nearly falling onto his forepaws. His arms sprang out to catch himself and Brother Wolf with the dark sick wound ushered the man-scented one farther back. A fine slick drool had gathered in Scott's lower jaw and as it puddled deeper it began to dribble from the sides of his mouth, smattering his chest and feet. His eyelids were heavy. Vision softening. Bleary.

“Not much longer now. But he won't be out for long. Once he drops, ya'll haul him into the car and get the chains on him again right quick. We won't have a second chance at this.”

Scott had forgotten exactly why it was that he wanted to gut these three intruders, forgotten the buck with its intestines winding out and its head snapped back toward its haunches. The taste of blood and viscera was dull on his tongue as he stumbled and fell to his knees in the mud, gore watering his calves and splashing up onto his arms and face.

Somewhere in the distance, his Alpha howled.

“Christ alive. Derek!”

“It's fine! Don't stop! He's too out of it to respond. Keep going.”

Scott struggled to rise and fell hard again, claws scrabbling for purchase. A nearly kittenish yowl flew from his hard black lips as his sire's potent cry hollowed out the night sky. Had to rise, had to stand tall. His Alpha was calling. He nipped at the wounded Brother Wolf as he approached but his fangs fell short, the muscles of his jaw too weak and stony to draw blood.

The first projectile struck him in the shoulder, tossing him head over heels. He toppled hard against Brother Wolf and both tumbled against the soiled roots of the arroyo willow. The bite of the vicious shaft through tendon and bone was so quick and powerful he barely felt it until he rolled over onto the arrow. He was too weak to shout at the incredible pain, only managing a long high whine.

“NO!”

“Gods of hearth and home, what now!?”

The second projectile pinned Brother Wolf's hulking arm to the trunk of the tree and he roared so vehemently that Scott could feel it in his own lungs.

“STOP IT! LEAVE THEM ALONE!”

“Stiles, get the hell out of the way! I won't ask you twice.”

“THEY HAVEN'T DONE ANYTHING! LEAVE THEM ALONE!”

The man-scented one had stepped in front of the two bleeding wolf-men at the foot of the willow. Scent of terror overpowering. Salty, wafting tears. Close enough to slash the tendons in his ankles. But Scott was too jarred by the pain of the shaft scraping his skeleton to think of reaching out to nick him with his claws.

“I swear to God, I'll put the next one through you if you don't get out of my way.”

“Then shoot me, but look at his face first! Look at him, please! It's Scott! He's just scared and hot from the fever. Just let us take him home. Nobody has to get hurt any worse. Allison, it's Scott! Didn't you hear that just now? That was the Alpha. That was the one you're looking for, not them. They haven't done anything! GODDAMMIT, ALLISON, PLEASE – THEY HAVEN'T DONE ANYTHING!!!”

 

***

 

STILES stood with his arms poorly shielding Scott and Derek as the two werewolves curled in pain. Derek had pulled the arrow out of the tree but it was still sticking grotesquely out of his forearm. Overhead, the thunder rumbled, threatening. Stiles wondered if that was him, if he was doing that. He wondered if he could call down the lightning to strike the girl standing across the clearing with her bow drawn taut and pointed squarely at his chest. Her thin dark jacket was glossy with dew, her heavy boots planted firmly with a stalwart poise. He could see the terrible barbed arrowhead glinting in the dark.

“Allison, please,” he said again, as calmly as he could manage. There were tears spilling in reckless streams down his stricken face, his breath coming faster and faster. He fought down the panic attack and held his ground. The thunder cracked violently.

“Tell your sorcerer to stop,” the young hunter spat impatiently. Her arm never once faltered with the weight of the bowstring. Her shimmering chocolate hair was pulled back against her skull and gathered atop her head in a tight bun. “Whatever he's doing, whatever spell he's weaving. Tell him to stop now or I'll put you both down.”

“Now, you listen here, you irrevocable savage – !”

“Dempsey, not now!” Stiles spat without looking back at him. “Don't stop. Allison, I can't ask him to stop.”

“Stiles, do it now!”

“I can't!” he shouted hoarsely. Sweet Allison. Kind, gentle Allison. Allison who smelled like lilacs. She had murder in her eyes. Her soft low voice was harder than he'd ever heard it. “He's the only thing keeping Scott down right now. He's putting him in a trance or something so he can't bolt again. Please, Allison, we just want to get them home. Derek's wounded. If we don't get him treated he's going to die. Please, don't do this. Please. We can all just walk away right now and nobody has to get hurt anymore.”

“Fat chance of that, Mr. Stillinski.”

“Dempsey, shut your fucking mouth for once and let me handle this!”

“Both of you shut up! Stiles, what the hell is going on!?” Hesitation in her voice. Uncertainty. “How the hell are you... What the hell are you doing out here with them? When did... Damn it. Damn it! Shit!”

She lowered the bow. Slowly. Thank God.

“Just... Just look at him. It's Scott, I promise I'm not lying. It happened last week. Just last week. Just the day before he met you. He hasn't hurt anyone. Your people have a code, right? I swear he hasn't hurt anyone.”

She began to advance slowly on their tight gathering. Stiles tensed, ready for anything, his hands clenched at his sides. His knuckles were strained white.

Allison hoisted the bow carefully over her shoulder and replaced the arrow in a leather quiver at her hip. She produced instead a wicked triangular blade from her belt, spinning it deftly twice on one finger before bringing it to rest with the edged tip pointing downward from her fist.

“No...” Derek sputtered from behind Stiles at sight of the knife. His voice was weak. Stiles thought he could smell the demonic wound in Derek's back. Like filthy smoke. “Get away from him,” Derek gasped. “Get the hell away from him. Don't touch him!” Derek tried to struggle to his feet and Stiles heard him slip and crack against the roots of the tree once more. He held his ground even as every fiber of his being ached to turn and help the dark man. Scott merely laid defeated, his breathing shallow.

“Allison, please,” Stiles begged again, his voice breaking earnestly. He met her dark hazel eyes and held his stare. “I just want to get Scott home and get Derek some help.”

She seemed to be considering her next move carefully with every reticent step she took. Her glare swept from Stiles to Dempsey, then flashed over Derek where it narrowed suspiciously. Finally she cast her eyes on Scott where he laid. Stiles prayed that was a softening in her granite stare he saw when she saw Scott a little closer.

“None of you move,” she commanded, then looked to Dempsey. “How long will he be down?”

The witch shrugged at her, as if he was disgusted with himself for deigning to speak to her directly. “Could be twenty minutes, could be five. That aside, Ah have a very ill patient here who's in need of some dire healing. If you don't let me put him right – if he dies here tonight – you'd best believe you'll be seeing me again, Miss Argent. You can't kill us all before Ah get mah hands on you.”

She scoffed. “You'd be surprised what I can do. Stiles, let me see his eyes.” She nodded at Scott.

“What? What the hell do his eyes have to do with – ?”

“Stiles, just get out of the way and let me see his eyes. I won't hurt him if he really hasn't hurt anyone else.”

“I'm supposed to just take your word for it when you're coming at me with a knife?”

“If he gets up out of that trance I promise you'll be grateful that I'm carrying this,” she said tersely, gritting her teeth. “But... If that's really Scott... I don't want to hurt him, alright? If you're telling me the truth then I won't. I promise.”

What the hell could he do?

“Derek,” Stiles said, never looking away from the approaching hunter. “Is she lying?”

Momentary silence, then, hesitantly; “No. She's telling the truth.”

Stiles sighed deeply, right down to his bones. “If you... If you do anything to either of them, I'll kill you. Do you understand me?” He meant it. “I'll find a way to kill you.”

She actually smiled at that, and it was almost a shadow of the sweet prepossessing smile he had grown used to seeing at school. Like she pitied him. “I don't doubt you'd try, Stiles.”

She brushed past Stiles and knelt beside Scott, turning him gently in the filth till he was facing her. His eyes were barely open. Allison carefully brought one hand to his thick-browed temple, pausing before touching him, and pulled his eyelid wide with her thumb.

His other eye blinked open with it, catching the light of the moon overhead.

The next few seconds could have been a whorl of violence. They stopped just short.

Allison had the blade at the ready just as a thick gasp escaped Scott's lungs at the sight of her, the tip of the knife centered just beneath his chin, ready to drive upwards into his brain at a moment's notice. She did it with the cool momentum of a professional, quicker and more precise than Stiles had ever seen in any movie. One moment the knife was at her side and the next it was at Scott's throat before Stiles could open his mouth to protest.

Derek lunged, howling as much in pain as rage, but before he could rise fully she had extracted a second blade from her belt and swept it in a tight arch till it was level with his throat as well.

She didn't strike the killing blows, though. She could have killed them both, but she merely held her ground, unflinching.

“Derek, wait...” Stiles said. He hadn't taken his eyes off Scott. Something was happening with Scott. He was...

He was shifting back.

Stiles had thought it was a trick of the shadows at first, the dancing moonlight through the clouds playing with his perception. But the hair was diminishing all over Scott's face, his fangs retracting and his ears rounding at the points. Stiles saw a whisper of unmasked emotion in Allison's face then, and she reached down to touch Scott's cheek with the blade still held against her palm.

“Allison...” Scott's voice was feeble, but it was his voice. No deep lupine rumble.

She laughed softly. Sadly. “Scott. Oh, Scott. Of course it's you.” A solitary tear curled down her cheek and landed on his neck. “Why wouldn't it be you?” She closed her eyes, breathing deep. Another tear threatened but she wiped it away hastily, turning to Dempsey. “Do what you have to do. Heal your friend.”

Dempsey sneered, “As if Ah need your permission, Katniss Murderqueen,” then bent to tend to Derek's back. “This ain't over by a long shot, Miss Argent.”

Stiles wasn't sure if Allison even heard him. He sat beside Scott and squeezed Derek's calf a little too hard, looking back and forth between his best friend and his... Whatever Derek was to him, exhaling a wave of anxiety that had nearly crushed him.

She was Scott's fucking anchor. The hunter. The girl who'd just shot him with a goddamned bow and arrow like some barbaric neolithic tribeswoman. He had taken one look at her and the man had replaced the wolf in an instant. Like it was nothing at all. If there hadn't been an eerie reverie shrouding them all at that moment Stiles would have broken out into maniacal laughter. He might never have stopped laughing.

“I have to push it through.” He was brought out of his mind by Allison's declaration to Scott, who she was helping to sit up in the mud. She had a slender manicured hand on the shaft of the arrow in his shoulder. “The arrowhead... I won't be able to pull it back the way it went in.”

Scott nodded, taking it all in stride like an obedient puppy.

“I'm sorry, Scott. I'll... I'll explain. I'll explain after all this.”

He nodded again, smiling. Idiot. “I will, too.”

“On three, OK?”

He snickered like he was on drugs. The magick trance must have been lingering. “Is this one of those things where you tell me you're going to push on three but you're really going to – YAGH, FUCK!”

Scott's exclamation was cut short. All five bowed heads present turned skyward together when the Alpha howled again, the sound of the solitary war cry echoing rough against the dark early morning. The sun wasn't due for hours. The moon endured, uncaring.

 

***

 

MILES and miles away, in the cushioned safety of her bedroom beneath a gilt canopy draped with swaying gossamer curtains, Lydia Martin awakened with a scream.

 

 

 


End file.
